


come the night

by roxymissrose



Series: come the night [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, M/M, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:52:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 29
Words: 93,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxymissrose/pseuds/roxymissrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that.  Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night Before

PART ONE

**The Night Before**

_"We get some place near the beach, we drink a shit ton of booze, we fuck each other on every available surface. And then…we relax."_

"Come here…" Sam's laid out on the bed, looking pale in contrast to the dark brown of the comforter that Dean knows is scratchy and musty. He sighs. Would have been nice if for the last night of their lives, they could have stayed some place decent for once. He walks over to the bed, juggling two bottles of Corona, and a bag of generic chips. If he's gotta go, he's splurging on half decent beer at least.

Sam scoots over, his worn cotton boxers rasping against the pilled comforter, reaches over and grabs the beers. Sets them on the nightstand and grabs Dean's wrist next, gives him that knowing look that says 'I know you like it when I do that'. "I said c'mere."

He pulls Dean on top of him and Dean's the one who huffs out a breath. "Shit, it's like slamming into a fucking brick wall, and about as cuddly."

"Shut up, you love it," Sam says fondly. "You're just jealous 'cause you're all jiggly."

Dean knees Sam hard inside his knee, laughs when Sam yelps and twists away. "Hey, it's fucking genetics. Some of us turn into the Hulk and some of us have normal physiques…besides, jiggly my ass, I can take you down in half a second and have you crying like a little girl."

Sam's got his face shoved into that nice warm place in Dean's shoulder that smells so good. "…true. 'Cause you're sneaky. Always been sneaky. And your ass is no way jiggly." His fingers poke and prod in places only Sam's allowed to now, and Dean makes noises that he'd swear on pain of death aren't giggles. Giggles morph into moans when Sam works on a patch of skin that if he scrapes his teeth over it, just this side of a bite, gets Dean hard instantly.

From there, it's Sam working him nice and open, lots of spit, and lube too, because Dean's not a masochist. Except for the part where he likes Sam to shove in rough and fast, and then draw it out until Dean's back is arched and he's cursing steady and threatening Sam if he doesn't fucking move right the fuck now, fuck yeah, just like that….

After they're wrapped up in the wrecked sheets, legs and arms woven together in a Winchester cats-cradle. It would all be almost perfect if they weren't heading out to die in the morning.

"Castiel says…there's a possibility that we'll make it out alive."

"Did you forget the part where he went all Spock on us, and gave us odds that basically meant a snowball's chance in hell of surviving?"

"We still have a whole ten per cent of—"

"Oh my god. Your mouth's a lot better suited to sucking my dick than giving motivational speeches, you know."

Sam rolls back from his brother and stares at him until Dean shoves him and snaps at him to "stop staring, bitch."

"I'll stare if I want to. Listen, tomorrow we're gonna have a showdown with Lucifer. We're going to send him back to hell, courtesy of the Colt. And after, we give this whole thing up. Ditch angels and demons and vengeful spirits, and, and--we go. To—to—someplace warm close to the ocean. We get some place near the beach, we drink a shit ton of booze, we fuck each other on every available surface. And then…we relax."

Dean beams at him, teeth shining in the near dark. His brother's a motherfucking genius. This plan of his is better than Castiel's for sure. 'Course, they weren't giving up on the 'hunting things, saving people gig' forever. Just until Sammy got over being tired and freaked. After that. Dean figured, it was anything goes. Fuck, maybe even a happy ending for real. In the meantime....

"Hey…you up for seconds?" He fists Sam's soft dick until it gives some signs of interest, figures he'll be a good guy and speed things up a bit. He likes watching Sam's face when he first takes his dick in his mouth. He always looks so pleasantly surprised, no matter if it's the first time in a week or the third time of the night….

_Dean feels pretty good, considering. In the morning, Sam will tell Lucifer yes, and when he arrives, all ready to slip on his shiny new prom dress, Dean's going blow his satanic brains out. Simple.  
_

+

  
Sam feels pretty sure the Colt will be useless. But Castiel is more than certain that an angel killing knife will work on any angel, including fallen ones, and all Sam has to do is coax him close, and then it's up to Cas, and Dean to distract him. If they fail, well, as long as Luce doesn't blow them all to atoms, there's still a chance…. 


	2. The Fight

_"I came to say yes--"_

  
A rainbow arches high in the air over what's left of the Shell station on the corner of a street that doesn't exist anymore. A broken water main showers the cracked concrete, the streams of water shooting into the air and raining back to earth sound like summer showers, the bright afternoon sun turns the water droplets into diamonds…horns bleat, sirens shriek, there are no human screams, just the creak of cooling metal, the patter of bits of brick and concrete falling to the streets and the constant howl of sirens. Someone was crying.

Bodies litter the street, their passengers flown. Lots of collateral damage. Still more were staggering around, black eyes blinking in confusion. The angels called to this skirmish had dispersed the moment the smoke cleared. Dean stares upwards into the now mostly clear blue sky and listens.

Sam…had done what Cas said he should. The plan was fucked from the jump. The Colt, loaded with Bobby's bullets, was good for the demons, and yeah, they wiped out Luce's generals but the big bad itself….

"Did you know?" Dean's voice is a stream running over broken glass, rocks in a tumbler…"God damn it, did you know?"

Castiel winces, at the blasphemy, at the blood that speaking brings spilling out of Dean's mouth. "I. I wasn't sure, we—this wasn't the plan. Sam was—this wasn't the plan--"

"The _Plan?"_ Dean laughs, and it feels like things are shifting inside of him, falling out of him. He can't move because he's broken to bits, he's sure. Has to be, it hurts so damn much.

"Stay still, Dean. Let me—" Castiel touches him, and what's usually a warm, bright, fizz through his body just rips and tears through him, makes him scream. Castiel stutters an apology. "I'm not—I'm out of balance, it's hard to control, sorry—"

The scream, Dean's scream, attracts attention finally and Dean's sorry it does.

 _He_ turns his head and looks at him, empty eyes trained on him, boring into him.

 _Shit_.

 _The vessel finds them at the Shell station. They don't know the name of the person who comes out of the sky a few feet ahead of them that Friday morning. They know it's Lucifer, but his vessel is nameless now. Once it was Nick, and he'd had a family and lost it, and the loss of it cost him his soul. The vessel strolls up, the picture of a man out for an afternoon walk, a little smile curling the edge of his lip, and it would have been a pretty average sight except that Nick's skin is dry, cured on bones threatening to split out of the flesh. Some parts of him have given up; Lucifer's burned right through them, using Nick like a tissue. He's in the middle of a crowd of assorted types, businessmen, waitresses, students, grandparents…they mill around him, looking about with identical black eyes. His army._

 _The Morning Star smiles…the bag that was Nick smiles, but Nick's long, long gone and but for Lucifer, the vessel is empty, a box coated with ash. But Sam--Lucifer smacks dry, cracked lips, anticipating--Sam's going to fit him like a mink coat on a chorus girl, pretty like blood diamonds on a supermodel. He's going to get up in that like the longest, deepest fisting in the history of the human world. Lucifer laughs--he's always had a way with words. He spies the little group of rebels, what's left of them, shattered. Broken little pieces. Sam's shaking with outrage…his anger always his most attractive feature._

 _I came to say yes, Sam shouts. Why did you do this?_

 _I just got here. It was them, he points at his army milling around him. But tell you what, I get that it pisses you off. He kills every demon standing between himself and Sam. There. Better? Now, you were about to say?_

 _Sam shoots a look at Dean and Castiel, and says, Yes. Okay? Yes. He's on the boy in a second, reaching for him, and Sam, Sam whips out a knife, the knife, shining in the morning air, singing as it lunges towards him, aimed for his heart. Dean's holding the useless Colt in his hand, gawping at Sam and the knife. Nick's dry lip's split open on Lucifer's smile. Ah. Looks like it was a surprise to you too, Dean-o, Sam's just full of little surprises…now I've got one for him._

 _It probably takes seconds for Sam, but for Lucifer…he raises his/Nick's hands and everything. Stops. The knife drops to the ground and the look of horror on everyone's face is precious._

 _There you go. He opens himself and waits to fill Sam but. Odd. Something rips out of the boy and winds itself through—him. Pulls and it hurts. There's a feeling of something hot and bright racing past him and then he's covered, filled with black, thick, scorching, evil, sinking down, down, sinking—back. That's not supposed to happen. It can't happen. That's—STOP. STOP IT._

 _Lucifer is gone--Nick's gone, in a puff of ash, and Sam is screaming, blood bubbling out of his nose, weeping from his eyes, he's choking on it, spitting it—_

 _Dean grabs Cas' tie and jerks his head down. Save him, damn it. Do something, stop it, save him—this was your stupid plan—Cas, whatever it takes--_

 _Castiel shudders. All I can do is, I might be able to, it might—he shudders even harder, and Dean closes his eyes against the dual glow, Sam and Castiel light up like roman candles and all he can hear is screaming. Sam's. Lucifer's. An agonized whimpering he thinks is Cas but turns out it's all him, and his body decides now would be a good time to check out._

 

Dean blinks--or tries to, his eye lashes are stuck together with blood and sweat and brick dust; they ping and pull loose as he finally gets them open, and groans. "Fuck, that was a waste of eyelashes."

There's a ton of dust in the air and way fewer buildings then there were before. Sirens are dead, it's all silent now. Concrete's cracked and powdered all around him, feels like he's cradled in it. Feels like he's got the mother of all sunburns. Like he's been sanded and dipped in bleach.

He's alone. Cas healed him, held him, but he's gone now and it's just him and Sam. Sam's coming towards him, the sun behind his shoulder, his hair a halo of chestnut and gold. He's smooth and clean and bare, like he's walked through purifying flame and all that's left is this being , this other worldly being that looks like his brother but has deep, glowing eyes.

"Sam?"

Sam stops, towering over him. Assessing.

Dean takes inventory himself. There's a block of concrete holding him down. He feels sore all over but whole inside, thanks to Castiel. Whatever mojo Cas used on him must still be blocking pain, because he's just now noticing a piece of rebar's pinning his hand to the ground and that's why he can't move. The concrete is resting on him, but he's in a shallow gulley, covered but not crushed. He could get up if—

Sam reaches down, wraps his huge hand around Dean's wrist like he'd done the night before and pulls him straight up out of the trough he's lying in, right through the sharp edged crushed concrete and broken panes of glass and shards of metal and—

Feels like he's being peeled and he's fucking certain most of his hand's been left behind, still impaled on the rebar Sam hadn't removed before yanking him out of the ground. Sam's unbelievably strong now, more than he seems to know because the grip Sam's got on his arm is turning the bones to powder.

And then, Sam drops Dean on an unbroken piece of concrete. Dean passes out but not long enough. His eyes flutter open, he feels slightly warm, mostly numb. He can feel his heartbeat, feel his lungs expand. He's so conscious of them he feels if he's distracted everything will stop and he'll die. He blinks at a cool breeze on his cheek. Surprised to be feeling it…

It's bright still, so not much time has passed, still early afternoon. The sun shines down, butter yellow and warm. Dean can smell gasoline, hear it pitter patter onto the ground like rain. Sam's still standing quietly over him and it makes his heart beat faster. He's grateful because at least, here at the end, he's not alone. Sam shifts, his eyes flick over Dean and past, mild curiosity turning to disinterest. He turns away, ignorant of Dean's pleas, his screams as the pain comes rushing up out of nowhere. Sam mutters a vague "Shhh," before wandering away.

Dean barely has a moment to feel glad for the black wave of oblivion rushing over him before he passes out.


	3. Wake Up In Hell

  
_"Cities to burn, people to turn into bloody slush…"_

Dean wakes up all at once and it sucks. He hurts like a motherfucker, like a full body ass kicking took place while he was out. A few more minutes pass before he realizes he's moving—he's on his feet, walking and carrying an armful of--rocks. It's not long after that, that the truth of it hits him like a sledgehammer to the heart—he's in hell again. Stinks like hell, sounds like hell—he refuses to lift his head and look around. The longer he can avoid looking, the longer he can pretend it's just another nightmare. He ignores that he's crying.

He's one of a line of people, hunched over their own burden of rock and chained neck to neck. Dean feels the chain tap his chest with each lurching step. Not cold, not as heavy as he'd expect…the chains are dull pale gray. Bone, not iron. A thing comes out of the foggy crimson dark, armed with a whip. Roars something, and brings the whip down on Dean's arm. The skin splits and he screams.

"More rock." It points, and Dean looks down at the rock held in his arms—one arm, the other is a mutilated stump, balancing the rock against his chest. Dean grunts as he's jerked almost off his feet when the line pulls away. They drop their rocks on a pile off to the side of the track they're on. He does the same, the rock tumbling awkwardly out of his arms, taking skin on the way.

Walk some more, get more rocks, walk some more…they shuffle along and one by one, a wave of heads bob and bend to get more rock and shuffle limp hobble scuttle to the pile and dump it. Move off a few feet and repeat, move and repeat, repeat, repeat.

Dean's been doing this long enough that in places, the flesh has been worn to the bone on his useless arm. He's been doing this for a long, long time without being at home, lights off and no one in the driver's seat. He hopes some miracle occurs and he leaves his body again.

The landscape of hell hasn't changed in the hundreds of years he's been gone. Flat red plains broken by fire falls and bone studded cliff face, streams of lava roll and play over bodies waist deep in them, and screaming. There's always screaming.

The chain weaves through jets of fire and superheated steam, like an uncoordinated and ugly dance. Fire licks at them, bubbles their skin. Rocks tear at their feet, leaving bloody prints in the dust. The whip slices them, acid rain makes their skin burn, their throats cry out for water, their bodies cry out for rest, but they move and move and move....

Dean knows that none of this is real, or rather, none of this is permanent. He can forever thirst, forever hunger, he can wear his feet to the bone, and never die. Can't die. That's what hell's all about.

Sometime later, one hundred years later, or a hundred hours or maybe minutes, half an eternity, the air quivers with a noise other than weeping or the crackle of fire or the overseer's demands. It's odd; the sound's so weirdly out of context that Dean has no idea what it is at first. For the first time in forever, there's a reason to lift his head. His eyes sweep the plain that the 'road' cuts through. Nothing. The red and black hills roll away the river bubbles and steams, the firefalls sheet flame same as usual. Black bones poke out of the red soil here and there; black crows drop down on them, sharpening their beaks same as usual, and they eye Dean hungrily. Business as usual. He knows those eyes; he's felt those beaks, hungry, hungry beaks. He'd rather be endlessly trudging rocks on a barely formed road than to be game for the crows again.

Another look yields him black, twisted trees scratching at the yellow and red sky. He blinks when the limbs shiver, move in the windless air. Far away stands a single tree, taller than any tree could possibly be, it's clawed branches reach up into the yellow clouds and disappear. Nothing, and then, in the distance, a thin stream of red dust billows skyward, drifts closer. The odd noise grows louder and clearer.

Metal, that's what it is. Creaking, clanking metal and the sound of men in pain. Louder and louder and then, a car horn, cheerfully blatting what sounds like "La Cucaracha" over the creak and screech and jingle of metal…

A line of men yoked together like oxen appears on the horizon, longer and longer, dozens of them, dozens pulling something. And the something comes near enough for him to see. He snorts. It was…nuts. Purely crazy, designed by a crazy person with a twisted, crazy, belief that they had a sense of humor.

So, everyday there was fire and brimstone and sadistic freaks with leather wings wide enough to block out what passed for the sun. Every day, they shuffled past pyramids of skulls and fences made of legs bones and every day, blood rained out of the sky. Ash dropped liked snow constantly, acid pooled up like rain puddles under their feet and they kept on moving, feet churning up the burning dust, lungs processing what felt like mustard gas and then suddenly out of the night, there's something like _this_ …Dean shakes his head, marveling at the absurdity.

On a road in hell, pulled by living, suffering corpses, comes rolling up a Lincoln Continental, circa 1980, with half the top peeled off and cast-off Hollywood starlets grinding big wigs in the backseat…Dean stumbles into the body next to him. Looks at that shit and thinks, _Now there's something you don't see every day…._

One of the demons in the front seat stands up. He's a tall fucker, built like a monster. He sniffs the air and Dean…Dean's frozen. The pain he constantly feels disappears, he shivers despite the heat. _Shock_ he thinks. The big thing towering over the chain…it's him. His brother, alive, breathing. And he's…terrifying. Wrong. There's something terribly wrong with him. Dean feels it. And the moment he feels it, Sam sees him.

Dean's heart rips in two, joy at the sight of his brother, fear of what he might be…..

"Oh. So that's what happened to it."

The ground dips sideways suddenly; he's staggering…lights flash in front of his eyes. "The fuck? That's all you—" Dean starts, and slams his mouth shut. His first tour in hell taught him—never trust anything you see, hear, smell, or taste. Never trust anything at all. Silence was the best way that he'd had to protect himself, seems like the smart thing to fall back on now. Sam leaps out of the Lincoln; it sets the electric chandeliers wired into the car's hood to shaking. Shouldn't have let Sammy watch Escape From New York…he was no way as cool as Isaac Hayes. No way he could pull off that car….

"Face down, maggots. No one looks at the King!" The gravelly voice of the overseers splits the relative silence and Dean flinches as the whole chain hits the ground and grind their foreheads into the dirt, Dean right along with them—he learned early on that it's okay to cry and scream like a baby because no one gets a medal for being John McClane in hell. Besides even big John would have peed himself here, Dean figures. Turns out it doesn't matter that they're all as obedient as puppies, that fucker lays the whip on anyway. Searing fire stripes his back and legs. All up and down the line the bone chain clacks and chatters and miserable bastards scream and cry.

"Wrap that one up and put it in the car." Sam sounds like he's purring. Dean remembers that self-satisfied voice…in a more pleasant situation. Like after Sam's made him come so hard his toes ache. The thought makes Dean kind of sad that there's not even an echo of arousal at the memory. "Hurry up," he hears and now there's the edge of impatience Dean also remembers, it almost makes him smile. He waits for the overseer to unlock him from the chain when suddenly he's yanked and jerked around until he feels like a ping-pong ball in a dryer. Soft popping noises and the whoosh of displaced air force him out of the place in his mind he dives into when shit gets to be too much. He's blinking, gagging, his face pressed into ash-coated mud. They _sam_ didn't take him off the chain, they _sam_ just cremated everyone chained on either side of him. They _sam_ just—burnt them into ash. Disappeared them.

Dean lifts his head from the mud, barely, tries to see through his lashes. He sees Sam, and an unsuited demon kneeling in front of him, all barbs and tentacles and horns. "Um…what, do you want him, I mean, it, in tha car, your majesty, sir, like, in the front seat or, or…"

There was a brief shower of demon blood and guts and small sharp bits that prick Dean's skin. Dean screws his eyes shut, tight as he can and prays, hard as he can.

"Idiot. Now. You. Where are we putting it?" Sam's definitely not happy.

A different and very tentative voice says, "In…in the trunk?"

"And hurry up. Cities to burn, people to turn into bloody slush…"

Dean kicks hard. He screams, hands over his face, too fucking aware he's inhaling what's left of his fellow slaves. He's screaming, loud as he can and trying to scrabble away from Sam's demon playmates. He's not wasting time wondering if Sam's going to hurt him—it's hell. That's the game plan every day; it's not changing just because he wants it to. He's kicked and rolled into something dank and scratchy like a horse blanket, then lifted and crammed into a space that sadly, he recognizes as a trunk. Normal people wouldn't know just from the feel what the tiny enclosed space that they've been crammed into was, he thinks hysterically. He wishes he could brace himself. Riding in a trunk on an ordinary roadway was like being tossed in a martini shaker—he figured this was going to be a ride in…hell. He's torn between crying and laughing, he wishes he could breathe—he wishes he were the kind of dead that brought oblivion.


	4. Live In Hell (part a)

**Live In Hell**

 _"And that's just the beginning."_

1

  
When Dean wakes up again, he's lying on his back in a bare small room. The light seems to come from everywhere, though he can't find a light fixture, and there aren't any windows or doors and the walls and floors are the same colorless, featureless, solid panels of nothing. He rolls to his feet, noting that the floor is warm, and though it looks like metal or concrete, it's almost got a give to it…he inches his way along one wall, arms spread and dragging his fingertips lightly over the surface, searching. He gets nothing—there's not the slightest bump or pimple. Can't feel a tool mark of any kind, the fucking walls are smoother than his skin…great. Just great.

"Shit." He drops back to the floor, cross-legged, his chin heavy in his hands. So. He's locked up in a damn cage, with no brick to chip, no paint to scrape… no way to mark the passage of time. If he's gonna be in this cell a while, it's gonna suck fierce, like being stuck in a dry sensory deprivation tank. There's no sound, even his own voice is muffled. He finds that out screaming for Sam to fucking show himself, stop trying to fuck with his head. No one comes.

Or maybe they hear him and don't care. They don't come, not to find out what's up with the noise, and they don't come to feed him either, or give him water…no one ever comes. No matter what he does--shit, piss in the corner, bleed like a stuck pig that time he bit through his wrist and that was…if he hadn't done a tour in hell already, he doubts he would have been able to do that…still the same thing happened then that happens all the time—he passes out and when he comes to, the room is a spotless, beige box again, his skin is perfect, and he's fine…just fine. Forever the same--oblivion and then, reset. His brother…Dean was afraid to think his name. Afraid he wouldn't come. Afraid he would come.

No one ever comes.

2

Dean thinks he's curled on his side. He thinks his eyes are open, but they could be closed for all he knows. He'd thought once, before thoughts became wordless showers of stars, of a fable he read a million years ago, a story about a man who lived too long. So long he turned into a grasshopper…Dean had wondered if it was possible.

What he knows now is this: his legs twitch occasionally; his good hand is tightened and curled in to his chest, clutched in a fist he can't open. His ruined arm is tightly drawn up as well. Time passes, and he curls in tighter and tighter in tiny increments. He's aware of this on some level, his body feels it faintly. There's no pain, pain faded long ago, or maybe he's lost the concept of it. It's all very simple now: he just is. It's not painful, it's not sad, it's not anything. He is, and is, and is. He curls up in the dark and breathes, in and out, slow and steady. Quietly, so quietly it's like he's not living at all.

Until there is light. Light everywhere, reaching down inside him and forcing him back to the surface. He's awake again and alive in his body, and it's like being flayed and dipped in acid and then sandblasted and then wrapped in barbed wire.

"Ah, there you are." The Voice calls awake an instinct to hide from It, but something deeper in him makes him want to move towards It, too. It makes his bones splinter and his skin crack. "I keep forgetting you're here."

He moves differently, and smells differently, His voice is different and so's His smile but he knows it's his Brother, blood calls to blood.

There's shadow in the light, a soft touch on the gnarled twist of his arm. The touch changes his world, turns it upside down…it's intense…not bad, but not good. He wants. More. But he wants it to stop, too…The Voice breaks in again. "What's wrong with your arm?"

Dean works his mouth, the skin flakes off in dry strips; his voice is a puff of mummy dust... words come and he speaks them. "Y'did it."

"Oh." He looks thoughtful, and then says, "I can fix that." He reaches out with a little smile and Dean has about half a second to panic before everything goes Very Bad. His bones splinter like glass and fight to rearrange themselves into proper order. Muscle shred as splinters move, reform, become whole bone, and blood burns as infection boils out and for the first time he can remember, he can move. Though that fact seems kind of insignificant, compared to the refreshed hell he's living. His Brother makes a dissatisfied sound, reaches down to grab his ruined arm. Squeezes, and it feels like liquid fire's being poured into him. Dean opens his mouth to scream, but nothing comes.

"There. Fixed this too," He says and when He opens His hand, Dean's body is whole.

Sam smiles at him. Dean feels his whole self wake and his stomach scream, screams for food and his dry throat aches for water. He wants so much, needs so much….

Sam pats his arm. "And that's just the beginning."

 

3

When he opens up his eyes again he feels normal…like the last thousand years never were. He's in a bed, big as a football field--feels like a football field filled with clouds. He's tumbled into a pile of pillows. They're soft, and smell good, and what's he's feeling is kind of like a full body orgasm. All he wants—just for a minute or two—is to lie back in pillows and wallow in the feeling and move his fucking arm, open and close his perfect fucking unmarked hand, and seriously enjoy the lack of pain. Store the feeling, bank it up, because it's still hell, no matter what it looks like at the moment and hell's all about the surprise dry ass fucking….

It's a damn impressive room. High ceilings, curtains line one wall, and light breezes sweep the hems gently on the floor with a whispering sound. The walls are a pale, pale green. Very restful, Dean thinks. Vases of real flowers sit here and there on furniture he's only seen in magazines in hospital waiting rooms…the flowers make his eyes burn and water. Color: bright orange, magenta, vibrant green leaves--even their smell makes tears leak from his eyes. The little bit of proof that there's real life outside of his head makes him sob and he feels weak and pathetic with it. Dean struggles to control this galloping loss of emotional control. Something tells him that it might not be just pathetic to let Sam catch him crying over a couple of vases of mutant daises, it might be downright dangerous... Castiel had done something to Sam that day, for sure…what it was, Dean didn't know. He wasn't sure who Sam was now…or if it was Sam at all.

Time's working again because he can track the progression of shadows across the walls, and tracking the movement draws Dean's eyes to the artwork hung here and there. Paintings, prints, Dean can't tell. It's the same gray skies over and over, some prints feature mountains, some deserts, in almost all of them there is a huge black tree, so tall it's unnatural. Its branches look like twisted arm bones, clawing fingers reach for the wide gray sky and puncture lead tinted clouds. The tree…he thinks he's seen it before.….

A door clicks open, the breeze kicks up and the gauze curtains billow. There's the click of heels against the marble tiles. He looks to the door, expecting _dreading_ Sam but it’s a big, well dressed guy, followed by a couple of guys that Dean would recognize anywhere as thumb breakers.

Dean blinks. When Sam had rescued him from the chain gang _shoved him in the trunk of a car_ it'd been all Road Warriors in Hell, now everyone's playing The Godfather. The big guy sneering at him was pimped out in pinstripes and pinky rings. "Boss says you got an appointment. We're here to take you there."

Dean shoves back against the massive black headboard of the bed, flinging a corner of the bed sheet tighter around himself as he scuttles backwards. He's naked, naked as he'd been on the chain, and in the room…he gnaws at his lip, nervous, edging into desperate because he knows. They're going to parade him through where ever he was going bare-ass naked and that means--always means--something Very Bad. He blinks, and swallows bile…"I—I'll let Sam get me. He can take me." Dean tries to look defiant but he remembers all too well how things work here.

~o0o~ 

In the end protesting hadn't done much for him. He ends up hanging in chains again.

Once when he was a kid, home sick from school, he'd seen a black and white movie, something about a mad doctor who'd worn round thick glasses and a long white coat with a high, stiff, strip of collar around his neck. The arms of his white coat had been long and tight and almost covered his hands and Dean remembers this because that man was here, in that same coat, and his cuffs were edged in blood. The man smiles and smiles.

"Beautiful, beautiful. The old ways, the best, yes?"

Where Dean hangs suspended from chains, there are two tall metal tables. On one table, there's a tray, and on the tray, tools of various types. On the other table is another tray, but this tray is splashed with blood, and the tools are covered with blood and gobbets of meat. A lamp on the end of a thin segmented pole casts bright blue-white light over everything.

The room is long, and narrow, cold. There's a hint of damp brick walls and arching metal struts and light through a single, huge window casts the shadows of bars on the floor, climbing up the far wall….Dean thinks he hears things shuffling and scratching in the far corners, faint sniffling and moaning, but he's not sure if it's real. Not really sure what's real at this point. The room might just be an echo of memory…Sam's in one of the corners, smiling and winking at him. That can't be real.

The doctor hums quietly as he selects a tool, black rubber coated fingers poking delicately at the assortment, before selecting what looks like a long, thin saw. Dean screams, and tries to jerk away. The chains rattle frantically and the doctor looks disappointed.

"Please. It's better if you don't move," the doctor says in a mildly scolding tone, and begins to cut a series of loops and swirls and angles into his shoulders, around his neck--careful little cuts, painstakingly applied as Dean's caught, immobile, like a fly in amber. There's nothing he can move, nothing, and all he can do is take it. It's not the worst thing that's happened to him this day. The doctor stops. "There, I think you'll find your…subject, sufficiently protected now."

Dean moans low and long and hopeless, the sound mushy and caught in the bloody mess of his face. The black coated fingers splay over his stomach, rub gentle circles. "I can cut here, if you like. Or, take a limb. We've taken his tongue, an eye, his ears...."

Sam moves from the corner he's been sitting in, watching. He circles Dean and Dean jerks and trembles, trying to keep his eye on Sam. Real live Sam, really watching him get cut to bloody ribbons with a real expression…research expression, Dean thinks and would gag if he could.

Dean had stopped asking "why, Sam" after the doctor took his tongue, and then his jaw. Sam cradles the bloody shreds of his face. Stares into Dean's remaining eye. He whispers, so low that Dean thinks maybe it's not meant for him to hear, "It's odd, I'm still drawn, still want something--even ugly, I want—" Sam dropped his hand and flicked blood away. "Take his skin off."

"Oh my." The doctor looks pleased and picks up a sharp instrument. He shows it to Dean, and his one eye picks up the bright glint of light the thing throws off. "I'm so excited. These are brand new, a gift…a lovely selection of skinning knives. Have you ever used one? Well, of course you have." He smiles softly. "I imagine there's nothing new here, not for you. I'm just a dabbler, compared to you," he murmurs shyly as he draws the tip of a broad-bladed knife in tiny circles around Dean's navel.

"Get to it, I've got things to do," Sam snaps.

Dean lets the pain out, no point in pretending to be brave. The monster pretending to be Sam tilts his head at the sound. His eyes narrow, he nods slightly. Dean makes noise, he keeps nothing in, twisting and fighting in the chains, and Dean swears inside he'll never break. Not where it's important. He was going to give that thing whatever he wanted, all the pain, all the humiliation and eventually it would either get bored and erase him or maybe…maybe Cas will…

Dean feels the instant his mouth's whole again, and he's screaming, shouting for it to stop, for Sam to save him, for Castiel.

Sam's laughing. "Really, you think Castiel will save you?"

 

~o0o~ 

The doctor slices a long careful cut in the skinned muscle of his stomach and stands aside. The pink-grey glimmer of Dean's gut peeks out of the slice, each movement exposing a bit more and a bit more. Sam approaches, barefoot but his step sounds like bone against stone, like a hoof striking concrete. He slides his hot hand over Dean's bloody but perfect face, traces the thunder of his pulse down his neck, past chest, his sharp nail ripping a bloody piece out of Dean's nipple but he has no eyes for that and Dean's startled yell of pain doesn't yield more than a quick grin from him. He moves his hand lower and lower until his fingertips are tickling the edge of the cut, and then worming into it, opening it and Dean's shrieking—

He's elsewhere. Falling deeper, into a place where Alistair wore Sam's face to do terrible things to him, the things Sam's doing now…Sam's hand slides inside him and Dean feels his hand moving in him, touching inside him, squeezing, breaking things, popping things inside him. Dean moves and moves and there's no merciful blackness. Sam won't let his heart stop, won’t let his mind break. Even when he yanks, and Dean's intestines slither through Sam's hands and pool on the floor, Dean is awake and aware for every bit of it.

Sam says, "Call the angel again," and laughs, laughs. "I think he might be otherwise occupied, though."

And then the sun rose on a brand new day.


	5. Live In  Hell (part b)

4

Dean wakes on that giant bed, whole again—save the scars on his neck, and the scars on his soul and this time, Sam's in the room watching him. There's a puzzled little tilt to his eyebrows. "What is it about you, that makes me want to…take you apart, see what makes you tick….?"

Dean shivers inside, tries to push the creeping tendrils of fear deep down. Goes for smart ass, though it's never really worked for him, especially against Sam. "Think you'd have seen what makes me tick already, seeing as how you had your hands in every part of me." Bravado fails him and a sick rush of fear floods his body, but he's Dean Winchester so he holds it back and goes on smiling. He's terrified, swimming in it because he knows this is never going to stop, never, and grief-stricken as well because after all he'd gone through, all the promises and deals, he's still lost his brother….

But he's gonna keep pushing, because he _is_ a Winchester and that's just what they do.

Sam stands, shakes his head ruefully and shaggy bangs flop around, and Dean's heart breaks just a little more. He wonders if Sam's doing it on purpose, if he knows what seeing something so much like Sam does to him. "No," he's saying, "I'm not talking about the physical, Dean--though I guess you would think that, you've always been about the physical. No, I mean here," and Sam taps his temple. "What's going on up there, Dean? Anything? Besides basic animal survival stuff? I mean, even Dad knew you weren't exactly working the brain box, s'why he wasn't broken up about you ditching school. He liked just what he had in you, Daddy's two-legged little hand grenade." Sam strolls around the room, hands gliding over this and that but his eyes always on Dean's. "So, you're…stupid, and you're vicious…and still, you fascinate me. It's like there's no end to the depths of your stupidity, your moronic clinging to hope…pathetic high school drop-out, flailing around for someone to guide you…taking whatever 'family' dishes out, all, 'please, sir, can I have another?'. Useless. _Useless._ "

Dean stares at the white comforter and works to let Sam's words roll over him. They're just words, they can't do permanent damage, they can be forgotten, it's not something he hasn't heard before, it's not different than what he's told himself—hell, Dad had put it better than Sam ever could. There was a ton of scar tissue around that part of him, Sam wasn't about to make a dent in it. He lifts his head like it's nothing and meets Sam's eyes, and he smiles. "You forgot—I'm a moronic, flailing drop-out—but with a GED."

Sam's eyes widen, glow the color of sun-filled glass. His lips draw back and a sound leaks out that's so not Sam it makes Dean wish he'd kept his mouth shut. Sam comes to sit on the edge of the bed, settles like a hawk on a rabbit. He cups Dean's chin in his long warm fingers and digs in. Dean jerks his chin up and refuses to look away. Sam seems to like that, purrs, "Oh, right, I did forget. You like to substitute smart with smart-ass. Let's see how that works for you."

~o0o~ 

The doctor made a game out of sewing bits of him together into new configurations. When Dean had rational moments of thought, he was glad that Sam wasn't in the corner, watching.

~o0o~ 

"You know, Cassie thought that you were just barely adequate as a man. It wasn’t the hunting that made her shut the door, it was _you_. She knew you weren't whole…knew what images you were really jerking off to. And when you weren't looking, Jess laughed herself sick at your pathetic little-boy attempts to flirt. Horndog, that's how you styled yourself, wasn't it? Dean…you know, when grown men act like that, they're usually overcompensating for something…and we know what that is, don't we? Remember what you did? What you did to me?"

"What I did…to you?"

~o0o~ 

 

Real pain couldn't be ignored. Dean knew this from his first stint in hell. Pain just _grew_. Some pain could be bent, absorbed, even be turned inside out so that you started to want it and he knew pain like that. Fought the urge frequently when he'd popped up topside again…then there was pain like a juggernaught, bearing down on you, crushing you, grinding up the pieces and spitting them all over the landscape. But the worst sort of pain, more terrible than throat clenching, mind rending, physical pain, was the pain inflicted on the soul and Sam, he was good at that.

5

  
Demons circle the giant fluffy bed, grunting and sniffing and giggling. Their long hot tongues rasp against his skin, their claws tickle him. Their twisted, hideous faces, their hot poisonous skin, all over him, in him. There's no place to go, and the room he'd thought was some form of safety is just another cage. He's alone with nightmares, again.

The demons circle the bed and not all of them are tricked out in meatsuits, there are human hands holding him down, human mouths tearing at him.

Dean's tightroping the edge of sanity—has been for days or hours, however long this has been his reality. The puffy white comforter isn't white, or even puffy much anymore. It's streaked with fresh bright red, it's black and stiff in places. Painted with blood and come and other fluids….

Dean snatches a breath and screws his eyes shut and screams in one long exhale as the thing behind him rips right up into him. A burning pain screws through him from asshole to belly and then the thing draws its shaft out again. Dean feels his insides clinging to it, shredding—he's turned inside out with it and screams when the demon fucks into him again. And again. He can feel that barbed thing inside him squirm when the demon comes, it burns hot and scalding and slops out onto the sheets when the demon tears its shaft out. Over the moaning and grunting, the laughter, Dean can hear the liquid spattering the sheets, feels it hot and thick spilling on the back of his thighs.

The next one wants his mouth and it's almost worse that it's human-shaped but at least it can only choke him, or break bones in his face or crush his windpipe…at least there won't be battery acid come or little barbs to catch and shred inside his mouth or throat. This one wants to play. He's bleeding out and dizzy, there's something thicker than blood slithering down his legs and he can't pass out, hard as he tries, he can't sink into the safety of his mind…and this one wants nice....

There's a constant stream of words just on the edge of hearing, murmuring that goes on and on…sounds like Sam. The hand on the back of his neck, guiding him down onto the straining dick in front of him feels like Sam's. But he can see Sam in the corner of the room watching, and hear him murmuring high above him and feel his fingers pushing into his ass, and sliding into his mouth with the demon's dick…Dean feels Sam's fingers tighten on his neck, tighter and tighter like a collar made of fire and then he's coming and it's almost the worst thing that's ever happened to him.

~o0o~ 

"You wonder why I'm doing this," Sam says after another long session with the Doctor. Coming almost directly on the heels of being ripped to shreds by Sam's demon footsoldiers, no; it's the last fucking thing he's been wondering.

Dean's complete lack of interest in the why of his being tortured must show, because Sam snorts impatiently. "It's all about payback, _Dean_. I want you to feel the way I felt growing up. You deserve to feel the way I felt—miserable, terrified. _Powerless."_

Dean blinks. "What?" The ceiling of the room is spinning slowly in lazy loops and it takes a moment for Sam's words to break through the muddle in his head. "Sam?"

"You…what you did to me. Forced me to do." Sam's head is down, his body curved into a miserable curl and he's crying, wretched little broken-hearted sobs, the sound makes Dean struggle to get up, what's not aching or shrieking with pain is vibrating with the need to fix it-- _Sam's hurt._.

"What? I didn't...what?" The words get lost, mixed up on the way out of his mouth, but neither do Sam's words make sense, when had Dean ever hurt him like, like—fuck, they'd thrown punches, sure, worse when that bitch Ruby…but forced Sam to what?

"You didn't even…I was a child! You made me touch you, forced me into your bed." Sam's curled tighter now, his voice a harsh bark of misery….

Dean blinks again. But…he wouldn't—couldn't—Little Sam used to climb in his bed. For almost a year he slept in Dean's bed, after he found out the truth of their life. Understandable, with the nightmares the poor kid suffered…but they never, he never touched Sam. Not like that. Sam was the one, he'd started it…but they weren't kids, and he fucking would _never_ hurt Sam. Sam was his to protect—from everything bad.

"You used to say I was yours, and then you'd put your fingers in me and…"

Sam's crying harder now, his face painted with snot and tears, all red and blotchy. Dean feels like he's dying inside, watching Sam suffer like that, hampered by legs and arms too heavy to move but he tries, god, he tries. "Please, Sam, please, it's not true!"

Sam just keeps on going, ignoring Dean, his voice thick, clogged with tears. "I pretended, we all pretended it wasn't happening—why do you think I hated Dad so much? He should have known, should have stopped you—"

"But…I wouldn't. I'd never…I'd _never_ , Sammy!"

"Liar. You're such a liar." Sam watched, wet eyes dark in a blank face, when they took Dean away again.

~o0o~ 

After that, it was like a flood gate of something had broken open. Sam never let Dean heal. The Doctor took him apart, and put him back together just enough to make it interesting, and the accusations came, over and over. Sam drilled it into him, by voice and by touch…he blamed it on Dean and hurt him, accused him over and over, and after a while, Dean had to think.

Were all his touches as innocent as he'd thought? Were childish kisses that, or something else? He remembered sleeping with his hand on a young Sam's stomach, soft and round and warm….had that been innocent love, or something else? When he'd carried Sam on his back across a stream back of Bobby's yard, had the content thrill he'd felt just been because they were safe and it was summer and Dad would be staying home with them that night, and the next? Had he wanted something more when he'd woken up, leaning into Sam's warmth, his dick hard? Maybe it had been more than teenage hormones. Maybe…maybe there _was_ something wrong with him…had he raped his brother and now was refusing to admit to it?

"And then I ran, to college and a normal life as soon as I could and I felt like…for the first time I could remember, I finally felt safe. Safe. But _you_ ," Sam spit, " _You_ came after me. And took me. Beat me, threatened to do it to Jess too, and forced me to come back. And then…and then when I tried to leave, you killed her! Burned her alive, because she committed the crime of touching what was yours—"

"No! no, no, no! That's not how it went." But flashes of Jess' pain stricken face, Sam on his back, pinned to the carpet and Dean laughing into his face…Sam bleeding, screaming _no, Dean no_ …but it wasn't like that, he was sure…

Sam crawls up onto the bed and Dean cries out, broken bones and split flesh screaming in pain. "Yes, it was--just like that. And you know what I found out? That I liked it. That what you'd forced on me, I'd come to need, and Jess was just a poor, pale substitute…" Dean cringes when Sam's erection scrapes along his ass. He throws up, acid bile, swallows it down before Sam gets angry about messing up the pillows. Sam's hand walks up his spine, sending shivers spiraling through him and all he can think of is spiders. He remembers a motel room, air too hot, sheets kicked to the floor and Sam's hand tickling his back, and remembers loving it, laughing. Fuck, but he remembers Sam crying at his touch, voice high and childish, begging Dean not to, not to….

Sam's breath is hot against his shoulder, and he's promising Dean absolution. "You can have it like this, me, willingly. You don’t need to push. Maybe, if I do this the way I want to, we can lay it all to rest, and I can let you go."

Dean's heartbeat spikes at that. Hope nibbles at the corner of his brain. Maybe…maybe Sam's telling the truth, god, maybe Sam will kill him? Sam's breath roams over his shoulder, to the back of his neck, he mouths at the welts there, licks at the congealed blood. Dean tightens, and then, relaxes, a bit. It…it seems every spot Sam puts his tongue feels better….

Sam puts his mouth over a spot that the Doctor had placed a white hot piece of metal on. It had burned almost to the bone, leaving charred skin and peeling flesh behind. But when Sam touches the tip of his tongue to it, the pain, in fact the _wound,_ vanishes. He laves long licks over it, and it feels—good. Better than good. Dean shakes. It would take too much to beg Sam to touch him elsewhere, touch the spot that's been peeled to the muscle, reach inside him and take out the bits of metal threaded through his muscle, stabbing him with every breath…Sam made him hurt, he can make it not hurt. All Dean has to do is…whatever it takes.

~o0o~ 

Sam asks him a few days later, "Remember when we went fishing, that time in Idaho?"

Dean remembers Sam standing in a little stream, hooks they'd cadged from somewhere set with rolled up balls of bread, him grinning at Dean, and how the sun had turned his little boy body into gold. He'd been smooth and sleek, all skinny limbs and paddle hands, and Dean had called him frog boy…but what Sam said happened next hadn't happened…he'd never touched Sam, never licked water off salty sun-warmed skin, never pried Sam's mouth open with his fingers, or pushed him to his knees on the bank…that was wrong, had never happened, it was a lie, or… a, a, _false memory._

Wasn't it? He was sure. Pretty sure.

He quivered with the memory, it ate at him, gnawed into his brain, and the Doctor whispered in his ear, "I can fix that."

Three words that made Dean arch and scream on the table he was strapped to. Three words that always brought the end of the world.

"Shh, shhh, I mean that there are some pains I'll take away…I can take that one. But if I do, there'll be a price…a small price, I'm sure you can bear it."

Dean wants it, fuck the price, whatever it is. He just wants these thoughts to stop. Doesn't ask himself why the Doctor would do anything for him without Sam's permission. He's beyond that, the pain and guilt and sorrow are eating him alive

The Doctor is as good as his word. He does something to Dean's head, and it takes that Idaho summer away. Another day, it takes a winter in Colorado, he loses a week in Newark, Delaware and a few days around a hunt that Dad and he had taken to bring them close to Palo Alto. He loses a whole year, and it had been a good one because Sam had been happy, they'd stayed in one place long enough for him to make friends, co-own a dog with a goofy neighbor—there'd been a lot of laughter that year, a lot of good things. At least until Sam had shown him the flip side, the memories Sam claims he'd buried--the tears in the night, Sam begging Dean not to touch him, _please, okay, not tonight, tomorrow, I promise, I'll suck you off tomorrow Dean, I won't cry when you fuck me…._

Dean asks the Doctor to take that one and to make it hurt bad when he does.


	6. Live In Hell part c

6

  
"Dean…do you remember what Dad's name was? I forget." Sam's lying on the fluffy bed; his head in Dean's lap and Dean is carding fingers through his thick mane, because Sam likes it when he does that. Sam likes it when he massages him, when he listens without talking. It's easy doing the things Sam likes. Most of the time.

"You forget? How can you forget?" He makes sure he says it softly, teasingly, so Sam knows it's not a criticism, he'd never criticize his brother…"It was…Dad's name was…" Dean searches hard, scrabbling through thready memories. Tries to remember but there's nothing inside, just a blank wall. Empty sky, a well in the middle of his head. He tries anyway, because Sam asked him to. "Dad. I think…it was just…Dad."

Sam smiles, leans up and pulls Dean's head down to him. Captures his lips, kisses him, warm and slow, deep. His tongue moves like velvet over Dean's…he pulls back with a nip to Dean's lower lip and Dean shivers at the bright spark it sends straight to his dick. He licks up the pinprick of blood.

"Good boy," Sam says. He pats Dean's cheek, and Dean beams. It's a good thing when Sam feels good.

~o0o~ 

This has been a hard day. Dean has had a very hard day. Even the Doctor had stopped smiling at Sam's directions towards the end of his session. Something had made Sam angry, Dean thinks it's because he cried after being fucked…he can't help it sometimes. He knows that whatever happens is what he deserves for ruining Sam's trust but…no matter how hard he tries, he can't clearly _remember_ the things he'd done to Sam, not really. He can't imagine doing to Sam what Sam did to him…but he must have. He had to take it, for penance, forgiveness, so Sam could learn to trust him again. For Sam's sake. He thinks about trust—tries to—as he limps along behind Sam, straining to keep up with his fast pace and longer legs. Dean's fallen while on the leash before and it wasn't fun…Sam turns and looks behind him, at some point past Dean's shoulder. Shakes his head.

Sam's tsking at the bloody footprints Dean leaves on the tile. Dean stops running, stops trying to keep slack in the leash. His mouth fills with sour spit and he shakes so hard his teeth clack. He can't move, even with Sam pulling on the leash now, he's too afraid to move…there's no way he can walk without tracking up Sam's floors. Sam smiling though, he drops the lead and takes Dean's hand. "Don’t worry, I'm not mad anymore. You did so well this afternoon, you deserve a treat," he says and lifts Dean's chin to kiss him.

Even though Dean sighs and leans into the kiss, there's a little shiver, deep, deep in his brain, an unhappy shiver. He's never sure what Sam means when he says treat…is he going to heal him, or fuck him, or just let him sleep in the bed untouched?

 

7

What sun gets through the curtained window warms the sitting room…today the walls are a pale sea green. Sam's sprawled on the black leather couch and Dean is at his feet, twisted so his head is on Sam's lap and he's kneeling on the white fur rug. He watches the trees in the prints on the wall. There's something caught up in the branches in one print. He didn't remember the trees having held fruit before. When they'd left the room that morning, the prints were identical, all gathered on the same wall. When Sam brought him back, the prints were scattered over all the walls—and in one, a tree now bears fruit. It's all very confusing on his best days let alone a day in which he'd had his eyes pierced.

"What about Mom's name?" Sam asks out of the blue, and slides his fingers in under the collar of Dean's white t-shirt.

He freezes. Has no idea what Sam means. The words are…meaningless. There's nothing inside his head to tell him, he digs around, looking for a 'mom', for a clue as to what that was, but finds nothing. "I—I'm not sure what you mean," he admits at last and cringes a bit.

Sam frowns, "Mom, your mother…what hell are you doing?"

He yanks the chain still attached to Dean's wrists. Dean drops his hands from his eyes quickly and blinks pink tears away. He smiles some more, because sometimes smiling distracted Sam, and sometimes, he'd heal him faster, after. If he touched him the way Sam liked, sometimes he'd heal all of him. So Dean cups his hands over Sam's knees, rubs small circles around them, up his thighs. "Let me, Sam, that other stuff's not important. You know how stupid I am, I forget things all the time."

Sam's looking down at him, thoughtful, the look of vague interest that makes Dean's skin crawl because a thinking Sam is a creative Sam and creative usually hurts…he smashes the thought down. Sam's the one who heals him. Protects him, Sam's never failed at his job like Dean did….

"I've been thinking. About names. And forgetting names. Wanting to." He ignores Dean's startled, _'I never would'_ and goes on. "I think, maybe I'd feel better if you didn't say my name out loud. Memories, you know. Bad ones, you saying my name and hurting me." Sam's head tilts, his lower lip trembles delicately, his eyes are dark and his wet lashes catch the light like diamonds. "I'm trying, Dean, trying to forgive…forget…"

Drawing in a shaky breath, Dean tries to hide his face without using his hands. He knew this, this terrible, terrible, shame of his. He's forgotten almost everything but not this. He can't forget that he hurt Sam terribly, because Sam says so and if Sam says it's so, it is.

Sam makes a great show of being thoughtful, and says, "How about…instead of my name…" Sam bends his head and breathes against the soft circle of Dean's t-shirt collar, "instead of that, you call me…master?" Sam says in a whisper soft voice. With his finger, he draws little circles and stars and triangles on the smooth, clean, cotton of Dean's shirt, over and over. "Can you remember that?" His fingernail catches on the raised scars that circle Dean's neck, the stars and circles and triangles that Sam had ordered to be put there.

"Master? But that's—why? I mean--are you sure, Sa—master?" He winces—Sam's frowning, but it doesn't look dangerous so much as a bit impatient. Okay, it's creepy as fuck, but he can do that, only… "Can I ask, for how long?"

"Until I tell you different, _Dean,"_ Sam snaps, "Do you _want_ to be healed?"

The threat sends cascades of ice through Dean, he's barely aware of shaking, gasping, "Oh, yes please Sam—I mean, master. Please."

Sam looks pleased, content even, and he ruffles Dean's hair, tugs at the t-shirt. "Then you know what to do, don't you?"

Dean nods, shifts to his knees and unzips Sam's pants. "I've got you, Sam, know what to do." He hears Sam's impatient sigh and the warning note in the _'Dean'_ Sam drawls. Dean squeezes his eyes shut and opens his throat and hopes he'll forgive him for the slip….

~o0o~ 

The master takes him out of the room and for the first time he can remember, he's not being led to the Doctor. He's wearing clean, soft jeans and a plain white t-shirt—what he wears whenever the master says it's okay. They walk down a hall that's very much like a hotel hallway: wide, thick mahogany paneling, heavily carved doors lining each side, bronze wall sconces washing the walls with amber light every few feet. The floors are covered with plush beige carpeting that feels so good against the soles of his feet he can't resist digging his toes into it. It feels so good, the thick, lush warmth under his feet, that for the long minutes they walk Dean thinks of nothing, notices nothing but the rare, welcome comfort, content to let Sam lead. He ignores the noises that leak out through the closed doorways.

They stop in front of a bank of elevators whose doors look out of place in the smoking-club decor. They're efficient, ready to turn back a bomb blast or a rebel army, or maybe just one pissed off angel. Compared to the elegant hallways, they're ugly, blocky, finished off with a highly polished and reflective steel surface. And for the first time in…an eternity, Dean sees himself. He knows it's him because Sam takes his hand and squeezes it, and in the door, the reflected Sam takes the other one's hand and squeezes it.

Dean finds himself…unfamiliar. He's not quite as tall as Sam, but taller than he'd thought he was. His hair is brown and longer than chin length and it doesn't look right. Seems—odd. His eyes are dark green and that surprises him. He'd thought his eyes were the same changeable hazel as Sam's…Sam smiles at him, squeezing his hand harder and Dean quickly drops his head, afraid that staring at other Sam with Dean might be a wrong thing. Master. He means master.

After a short ride, the master leads him off the elevator directly into a large room. Tall, wide windows all along the wall light the room, and through them is a beautiful, sun-lit view of a city spreading right to the horizon.

"Sit," Sam says and Dean drops down immediately. He's grateful that Sa—the master seems pleased. He pats Dean on the shoulder and turns towards the long black table that's pretty much the main feature of the room. The master's subordinates are sat on either side of the table. It's obviously an important meeting of some sort, considering the volume and tenor of the conversation, but Dean doesn't have to attend to what's happening, and his attention drifts. The same furniture that's in their suite is in the office, leather and glass and steel, fur rugs scattered here and there. There's art on the wall, what looks like leather…Dean peers closer and recoils. The leather is painted with bright patterns: roses, sparrows, snakes and skulls and knives and hearts…tattoos. His fingers curl tighter over his knees—so tight the knuckles are white. His blood freezes. Human skin decorates the walls in Sam's office.

Dean quickly turns away and focuses on the other side of the room. There's a high back, wide chair, upholstered in burgundy leather and set on a small platform. Looks like a throne, he thinks. _Makes sense, considering…_ He doesn't let his gaze linger on the throne.

Above the ugly chair hang strange things, small black boxes, strung along the edge of the ceilings, and silvery screens edged in white flank either side of the throne. Static plays across them, and a muted hiss and what almost sounds like a moan play repeatedly, softly in the background….

There's something in one corner that catches his attention. Something about it draws him…he glances towards the meeting and Sam's not paying him any attention, so he edges over to the shape. The shape becomes a man, crouched on the floor, dressed in shapeless black rags that might have been clothing once. He's blindfolded, tangled up in thin chains. The man doesn't respond to Dean's presence, but there's definitely something familiar and…safe about the man, safe like Sam's never felt.

Sam catches him looking and he frowns, suddenly he's angry, very angry and jumps to his feet, knocking his chair over. The clatter when it hits the marble floor makes the man jerk and stumble into the wall.

Dean gasps, "Sorry, Sam—Master! I'm sorry!" He drops to his knees and crawls toward Sam, the scars around his neck burning, burning like fire.

The strange man snaps upright, flings himself forward in the chains, his hands held out in front of him, blindly seeking…something. "Dean? Is it possible…can it really be you? Help me find you…."

Dean jerks at his voice and out of the muddy swirl of his thoughts pops a name. _Castiel._ "Cas--"

Sam slaps Dean hard, splits his lip, and his minions surround Dean as if the bound man was a threat—they drag Dean from the room like a sack of potatoes and Sam snatches him by his neck and flings him into an elevator. Dean slams into the floor hard enough to crack bones in his wrist, but barely a second passes before he scuttles back to Sam, clinging to his legs. He's rubbing his face into Sam's crotch, mouthing at his thighs. Begs forgiveness, willing, promising anything, anything, and the demons around Sam perk up, hoping for a chance, a taste….

Sam's not having it. He grabs Dean by his arm and shakes him, shakes him so hard his head slams into the elevator wall, again and again. What Dean promises, what he begs for, mean nothing, they're worthless, Sam shouts, his promises mean shit. Sam finally stops when Dean's head leaves pink smears on the elevators walls. Some of the demons are inching closer, excited by the scent of blood and the mood in the elevator is tense, expectant, and Sam's so angry, Dean's afraid he's going to be thrown to demon council. Dean's faint with relief when Sam orders them off the elevator before going on. He drags Dean to his feet and shoves him against the wall.

"Get one thing straight—you can't promise me a damn thing. You can't give me anything," he snarls, an inch from Dean's face, "because you have nothing—you _are_ nothing." He drags Dean around by his neck, throws him against the wall, towering over him. Dean crouches, as much as he dares, and expects the worst. Anything could happen, has happened. His hands clench protectively over his belly and he waits.

"You fucking forget him, you hear me? Forget him!" Sam's talking to himself now, Dean thinks, his gaze skittering everywhere but at Dean. "Don't worry, oh, don't worry, I can take that too, make it go away, fucking thing, why can't I kill it—kill _you?"_ Sam grabs a handful of Dean's hair and yanks his head back, his throats exposed and when Sam opens his mouth wide, there's nothing human in his face--he looks like a wolf, red tongue, wet teeth and blazing yellow eyes…Dean closes his and waits.

The slap startles his eyes open, and he's looking up into the corner of the elevator, and for a second, he thinks Sam's damaged his eyes again but no. There really is something odd hanging in the corner--an eyeball, bright blue, wet, alive, set in a wreath of flesh and planted in a small black box. It watches them; long black lashes sweep down and up as it blinks. Dean watches it back, focused on it to the point that he's not with Sam anymore, and what Sam's doing. He's caught up in that blue, that cosmic blue, electric blue. That blue….

 

~o0o~ 

When the Doctor sends Dean back to Sam, he's bare of skin from his shoulders to the back of his knees. Sam pushes him down in the fluffy white bed, and it's like lying in a bed of barbed wire. Sam promises to finish healing him…if he does this one thing first.

"If you make it good, I'll make you feel good. Everyone wins." Sam smiles and opens Dean's mouth and slides his dick in. "You're beautiful this way, so pure, pure Dean. Open wider, let me in." Dean's face runs wet, blood and tears staining his pillow pink but he doesn't know why. He closes his eyes and concentrates on the slide of Sam's dick, over his tongue, heavy, hot, filling his mouth and somehow, it comforts him. Sam's muttering something, pushes in deeper, and strokes in and out faster. Dean opens up and takes it, pretending that what Sam's murmuring is about good, and want, that he values his brother….

Later when he wakes, the bed is clean, and so is he. The sun has shifted out of the room; the walls are a darker green. The prints have shifted again and the sky above the tree with fruit is the faintest, palest, shade of blue.

 

8

  
It feels like Dean's forgotten something but what it is, he doesn't know. He remembered the Doctor, and Master, and. Pain. He remembered that. The master will fix it. He's sitting on the floor, staring out of the window at the sky, a pale blue sky. He's been staring a long time, he thinks. A slow blink wets his eyes. He tries to find other memories but it's hard…they skitter away like eye balls on a plate. Dean remembers his name…and he remembers that there's something called Cas, because no matter how much the Doctor sticks his fingers in and swirls things 'round, he can't seem to forget that—but that's a secret gift he's able to keep to himself.

"Where's my little roach?" a voice rings out and he turns to face the room and puts his head to the floor. The master strokes a smooth hand over his back, lower, lower, until he's cupping his ass. Strong fingers squeeze hard, until Dean's biting his lip to keep silent. "What's my little roach doing? What are you thinking about, hmm?" The master looks thoughtful, and Dean shivers.

~o0o~ 

 

The master has a knife and the edge is very sharp…it feels like fire when he draws circles and stars and triangles in his flesh. Master's teeth worrying against the shapes makes his stomach swoop uncomfortably, it draws in with each biting suck the master takes. The room smells of semen and blood, and shadows grow on the walls. The master taps his knee and he spreads his legs wide. Fear makes his skin prickle—there's never any preparation for this kind of pain. The surprise is that the fingers that enter him don't hurt, they don't cut skin or scrape sensitive tissue, they don’t hook painfully into flesh…the glide is smooth and warm and he finds himself responding quickly…blood rises, fills his dick, he feels the warm rush of a blush in his cheeks, across his chest. The master is patient, taking his time to make it feel good and when he slides inside there's no burn, no pain, just little shocks of pleasure where his dick opens him, a full feeling that builds and builds, it shocks him with how good it is. The master rocks slow and steady into him—the master's hand on his dick moves the same way, warm and tight and steady, a little twist that makes him gasp, a little squeeze that brings his shoulders off the bed and a groan shuddering out of his mouth and all the master does is smile, and stare into his eyes as he does. It's not long before Dean's quivering on the edge of coming, begging for it, eyes on master's face. He's so close but Dean knows not to, he waits for permission. The master smiles, and fists his dick faster and tighter. "Brother," he drawls, "tell me your name and I'll let you come."

It startles Dean out of his haze. He blinks, slow and fuzzy, he tries to focus on Sam. "What? My name? I. You know it."

The master shakes his head. "I have a new name, a perfect name for you. I'm going to call you Roach. You like it, don’t you?"

"But no, I have—my name is, um, Dean…right?" It's too hard to think; he's too close, afraid to come, but needing to desperately and he can't think, can't think, can't….

Sam shakes his head, his nose wrinkling, dimples showing. "It's Roach. I like that better. Suits you."

 _It's not a name for a man_ , he wants to scream. _It's not my god damn name._ But he feels it slipping into his bones, greased by fear. The master rolls his knuckles over Dean's stomach, slides his fingers through the sweat.

"Do you ever wonder, Roach, what I'm doing? Wonder about the rest of the world? Do you think at all?" Dean whimpers, hopes he doesn't really have to answer. "Don’t worry. Nothing's going onl. Nothing at all." Sam speeds up the pace, faster, tighter and Dean's hips arch off the bed, his breath catches and heat floods him, he grows hotter and tighter and then—Sam makes a satisfied little grunt. "Say your name, and you can come."

"Roach—" Dean groans, and he comes hard—it feels so good, like the fluffy bed is empty, like he's alone, like he's far, far away from everything, everyone—and then fear shatters the calm. The master hasn't come; this must have been a trick, a test….

"Relax," Master chuckles, groans quietly and Dean feels warmth inside him, feels the twitch of master's dick as he comes. "See," he says, and gives Dean that slight, sideways smile. "I can make it feel good, or…" he digs his nail into the still bleeding shapes, "not. My Roach."


	7. New Life

9

  
The Doctor pets his hand. "You're perfect. The master is pleased with us both." He strokes his rubber-sheathed hand through Roach's hair, tweaks his ear playfully. "Go on now, run find your master. We're all done here."

Roach slides carefully from the examination table to the floor, waiting for pain to come shrieking at him when his bare feet touch the cold steel floor but he feels nothing. He touches his bare skin all over and he's unmarked, whole and not bleeding at all. He quivers—his master will be angry. He runs all the way to the master's room by himself, panting in fear, whining quietly to himself. He slows at the door, opens it carefully and walks in, keeping his head down. Ten steps into the room. Go to his knees. Wait for orders.

He waits and waits…the room is too silent. The master's not there. The master's always there when Roach is released, always waiting to examine the work, to heal or not….

Roach lets out a shuddering cry of dismay and falls to the floor, ignoring the crack of his forehead against tile. "Oh, no, no, no, don't leave me here alone, please…" He crawls across the floor, searches for clues to where the master might be, a long, low, moan of fear he barely hears coming from him as he scuttles about the room…he needs to find him, or maybe hide, what should he do? What is he supposed to do?

He's distracted by the prints on the wall, rather the lack…there's only one now, and it spans the entire length of the couch. It's the tree, and the fruit is a man trapped in the branches, a man with huge black wings…the sky is bright blue and the ground is the brown of autumn grass. The man is bloody but smiling, and Roach feels something besides fear, feels an itch under his scalp. A voice is calling and he knows it's calling out a single word to him but he can't make out its meaning. He's still staring at print when the Master comes. Master tells him he's lashing him for not presenting himself properly, for staring at a blank wall like an idiot, for being so very, very, stupid. And that's when Roach knows the master doesn't see the prints, never has…but what does it mean?

Later, feeling in a generous mood, the master explains that something he calls the War is escalating, that it requires more of his time to keep the maggots in check, and that Roach is going to have to expect a little neglect, but the master promises to make it up to him. Roach doesn't understand much of what the master is talking about, but he understands promise, and what that means…hopes the master forgets about all promises.

 **New Life**

 _"Don't hold it in, I can make it really hurt if you do"_

  
He brings Roach with him to the meeting room as a treat, though Roach thinks to himself he'd rather wait in the suite. Being unclothed in front of those things reminds him that it was different once, long, long time past. There was more pain but there was more…something else, something that was good.

The master doesn't let him linger in his thoughts too long, he makes him kneel, forehead on the floor, facing the head of the long table. "Wait here until I want you. Keep quiet."

Roach knows how to do that, knows how to filter out everything except the sound of master's voice. Time passes very slowly, and Roach kneels, waiting for master to give direction. His whole body is tuned to what the master wants. He lets the rising and falling thrum of voices, speaking about things that have no meaning, wash over him like a warm stream...it's almost pleasant, the soft, steady, sound. Finally, what feels like hours later, the master orders him closer. "Come over here, Roach."

Roach walks the length of the table and doesn't dare dodge the hands that reach out, the claws that trail over him, the pinch that breaks skin, tongues that leave wet, burning trails over his back, his chest…if the master had wanted it not to be so, he would have said. At last he's away from the reaching, grasping hands and drops in front of the master. Drops his head to the floor and waits and even after all this time, he's too aware of being open, exposed and defenseless in this position. Something deep inside him whispers, _there are two doors into the suite, neither guarded, the windows that make up the far wall are breakable, and the lamp behind the throne is heavy enough to crack skulls_ —Roach squashes it down so ruthlessly it makes his head hurt.

He waits for whatever comes next, and next turns out to be the master demanding he sit in his lap…the master is bored, which never yields good results for Roach. He inches closer until the master huffs impatiently, wraps a hand around the back of his neck and yanks him close.  
"Make it wet, Roach mine." He's unzipping, and pulling his mostly soft dick out, holding it in his fist. Roach dips his head and without hesitating, takes it into his throat. He's grateful master waits, lets him adjust to his reduced ability to breathe and then fucks him rather hard. It's an effort not to drool, or to choke, even though master likes the feel of Roach's throat working frantically to breathe.

He's getting the taste of precome now and let's his tongue slip over and into the slit, teasing thrusts that make the master moan—he slams a fist into the side of Roach's head. "Stop trying to make me come, you little shit…" Blinking stars away, he dares sneak a look at the master and sees he's not especially angry. Relief is woven into dizziness and he sways for a second before master pulls him to his feet with his hand sunk into his hair.

He's barely aware that he's climbing into the master's lap, finding the hot silky head of his dick and pressing against it until he opens up—the pleasure forces a groan out of him. Roach hates being in front of the demons, but it feels so good, that first push, that hot smoothness forcing him open—master grabs his hips and slams Roach down on his dick. Roach forces himself not to clamp down, splits his lip open biting down to keep from shouting.

Soft explosions of breath sear his face; he clings to the image of his master wanting him, only him. Master talks to him, tells him what a good roach he is, perfect little slut, eager hole, only good for this—Roach sucks his bleeding lip into his mouth when master shoves a finger in alongside his dick, and another finger, and another, until Roach feel like he's going to rip in half. His attempts to stifle pained gasps makes his master smile.

"Don't hold it in, I can make it really hurt if you do," he says and spreads his fingers wide. Roach throws his head back, howling with the way it makes him feel like he's on fire. Master says, "Come, Roach." and of course he does. His head drops to his master's chest, the only moment that truly counts to him, brief precious seconds he's allowed to touch master this way, having paid the price for it.

Master groans, grits his teeth, yanks fingers and dick out of Roach. He shoves him to the floor and lays stripes of hot thick come across Roach's back.

The master stands frozen for a time, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in a wild rhythm. There's something like a smile on his face and he mouths a word….his eyes open and land on Roach and…something washes over his face, something that makes his eyes go a soft hazel, a color that makes Roach's heart beat faster—

They flicker to a mottled yellow, and he snarls…lashes out with a vicious kick to Roach's belly, kicks him over and over until he's rolled nearly across the room. "Get away from me. Go—get out of my sight, you fucking freak—"

The demons laugh as Roach moves as quickly as possible, crawling away because his legs refuse to carry him. He lays face down on the floor for a few beats until he realizes that he's pulled himself to the corner with the man. Roach looks up and doesn't even see the man—his eyes are locked on the print behind the man. It's huge, taking up almost all one wall, and bright—the sun is blazing out of it, the skies are deep, pure sapphire, streaked with wisps of clouds and there is the tree and in the tree is the winged man. This winged man is different; he's sitting, not hanged, and clean of blood. His wings are spread wide and he's smiling, and oh, the smile…Roach feels warm tracks down his cheeks…he wipes and his hands come away wet with tears.

 _Come closer, I have a gift for you,_ the crippled man says. Roach inches forward. Closer, closer and then the broken man in the corner stands straight and Roach has the impression of an eyeless face, raw flesh where there should be ears, strips of skin ripped away and behind him, great tattered masses of something—feathers, or maybe leaves--clump to the ground as it fights the chains, and he's finally able to lay hands on Roach.

"Oh. Cas…"

There's a quiet rush of flame inside of him that grows steadily painful, fuck, so fucking painful, worse than anything Alistair ever managed to do to him and Alistair had cut him right out of his humanity…worse than Sam….

 _Quiet. Don’t say a word._

Roach _dean_ Roach drops his eyes, chest heaving as he tries to control his breathing, to fight against the meaningless words smashing into his head. Roach _dean_ struggles not to look at the thing wearing his brother's face because Dean—Roach--Dean knows right down in the marrow, knows that that thing is not Sam—it will kill him if it knows what's happening to Roach—to him.

 _I'm sorry. It is Sam. Or rather, it is and isn't._

Roach—Dean--crumbles. This is. It's too much. Too much knowledge, too much to live with and he can't, can't, can't live with it, no—Sam, Sam--what he's done, what terrible things he's done.

Castiel shouts, "Don't give up now," and Dean surges to his feet. The man in the corner. Dean knows him fully now.

Cas…Castiel, fucking Cas, and Sam's been peeling pieces offa him to make some kind of fucked up Rube Goldberg sentry system? The blue eyes blink and the screens near the throne clear and Dean sees images of himself, looking around the room, naked and wild-eyed and--fuck. The moaning picks up, growing louder and slowly Dean can pick words out of the noise. "Don't give up," small black boxes wired into the screens moan, just as Cas moans the words himself.

Dean can hear Sam howl, he's gonna kill the both of them, no doubt, 'cause Sam was a jealous…thing. Dean shifts, edging away from the corner as he digs thumbs into his eyes, thinking. The light pouring in from the windows illuminates all too clearly the monstrous _wrong_ all around him, none of this should be--Sam and his demon cohort, the throne, chains snaking across the floor, tangling Cas in a metal web—he remembers being chained himself and it's like seeing everything for the first time. Cas has opened his eyes, and now Dean was seeing the truth for the first time--

Sam's staring at him, shock and horror racing over his face, anger building higher and higher until he's bright red with fury, about to explode with it. His eyes lock on Dean's and flash a hard sickly yellow, a yellow that Dean's only seen in nightmares. Before he can even stop himself, he's babbling, like his fucking mouth is on autopilot.

"Please, please, please master, please, whatever you want, do it, please don't…" he's scrabbling backward, fuck, and ready to piss himself, because he remembers. Remembers burning for days and days while Sam watched and a wide smile put dimples in his cheeks…

"You get over here, Roach, you fucking piece of shit," Sam roars, "on your fucking knees before I tear your lungs out and feed them to you!"

Sam makes a fist and from across the room, he breaks Dean's ribs. Dean feels them crack…tears wash out of his eyes and he sees his brother at last, like he hasn't in all the time before this and he can see that this creature is just barely his brother—the flesh sits on his bones like a thrift store suit--Sam but not Sam. It's so plain to see now, how _wrong_ Sam is. Dean just manages to fight his training. He's carefully circling around Sam, away from him…fighting his conditioning for everything he's worth. He _wants_ to obey, god, it hurts not to. "Oh Sam…what did you do to us?" he whispers. "Are you in there at all, Sammy, even a little bit?"

His throat slams shut and against his will, he freezes— _Cas. Don't! What the hell are you doing to me?_

Dean gives up, gives in to the sharp-edged flood of memory Cas force-feeds his brain: Sammy having a bath in a motel sink. Sammy, laughing, knocking the soap to the floor and Dad chuckling, sending Dean to chase it down--riding a bike--Dad making them lunch--reading to them--Dean knocking out a bully for picking on Sam--first hunt--first fuck--first time for Sam and him and—

What he'd lost comes back to him and it comes and it comes and it doesn't stop—"Fuck. Fuck!" He slaps his free hand to his chest and can't believe there's not a huge bleeding hole there.

 

"Roach, baby, sweetie, honeymunch, come on, come on back to me, baby. Come back to Sammy, Roachling I need you, as much as you need me, you know you do, come on, you love it as much as I do," Sam croons.

What he's saying is pure fucking bullshit but the tone is…seductive. The memory of being held down by him and—and used, calling his brother master and needing it, loving it…Dean's fighting the urge to vomit but still, his lizard brain drags him a step or two towards Sam before he can shut it down. "Fuck you, you sick fuckin' bastard. My name is Dean. And I want my damn brother back."

There's a rustle in the ranks of demons behind Sam, an impatient move. They're just waiting for permission to rip him to shreds and Sam looks like a heartbeat away from giving it. Sam holds his arms out, that sideways smile slipping into place, that look he'd always paste on that screamed, 'I'm trying to be patient but your stupid hurts me'.

"Ro--Dean. Stop. Stop fighting me. After all, this _is_ what you made of me. Be proud of what you did, what the angels, what Dad did…you know it's not my fault." Sam's ramps it up, his face creased in that way that meant emotion was kicking his ass. The face that made Dean try and do anything he could for him. His fucking brother, the one thing on the planet he loved—still loves--more than. Fuck-- _anything._ Sam's put him through so much fucking shit, so much _hell_ and he still can't bring himself to break those bonds.

"You don't want to fight me, Dean. You can't. You'd rather kill yourself than fight me." Sam's voice is sweet, his hands reach out to him and look so soft and Dean knows what he can do for him…to him, and there's a thing inside screaming at him to go to his master.

"Yeah…I know you were kind of counting on me rolling over for you eternally, but Sammy—there's not much of you left. You. Well, Sam, you just—I don't know--smell wrong—" Dean wants to laugh, inside him there's a bubbling, black, poisoned well of laughter, primed to erupt. He forces it down--tastes like once he starts, he'll never, ever, ever stop.

And Sam…Sam swells all up like a pissed-off cat, pulls his back straight up and his shoulders fly back and his pinched 'owie puppy' face morphs into 'I'm going to eat your liver' face and that—that makes it easier. The flat yellow eyes staring into his don’t hurt either. Dean sighs. This is it, no more time outs. This is game-over. Right this minute. He gives Sam a look— _I fucking love you, always love you Sammy_ , says," You're right about that one thing, Sam," and he throws himself straight at the window he's been angling towards the whole time Sam was talking.

The glass shatters outward, claws at him as if to hold him back. A shard skewers his throat as he goes through. Instinct jerks his neck away and the action rips him wide open. Hot, slick fluid sluices down the glass, gushes out over his hands, spilling over the floor, spraying into air, drenching everything close. Massive blood loss, a quick death—he doubts even Sam can stuff his soul back, once it's totally fled his corpse.

Behind him, he hears Sam's insane scream of rage, hears Cas shout, "Dean!"—and feels his bones burning, feels every inch of his skin coming apart in an explosion of burning ash.

"Last gift, Dean," Castiel calls out, "the last thing I can do—finish hiding you. Forget, once more--"


	8. PART TWO: It Was Limbo

PART TWO

 

**It Was Limbo**

_"Want me to take you to the shelter, old-timer?"_

  


Dean wakes slowly, piece by shattered piece. His eyes haven't even opened and already he's desperately praying for death with all the might of his mind and soul, the fear of waking in hell making his lungs seize up. He gets it; he knows he's hyperventilating, panicking hard and about a hot minute from passing out again. Panic isn't helped by the sudden wash of anguished betrayal that curls him into a fetal ball and yeah, that's a reasonable response considering the state of him and Sam's life. He's pretty sure Cas…well, not Cas, but the angels, boned him and Sam good and hard. Again.

He blinks frantically, trying to clear his eyes while childhood training kicks into effect. Helps fight down the panic, and at last he can take a steady breath, look around and take stock. He's breathing, so that's a plus--but Sam. Sam…where the fuck was he?

"Fucking…SAM!" He shouts. Or tries to, what comes out isn't much more than a croaking gasp. "Sam, where the hell are you?" He can't smell gasoline, can't hear the sirens—and where the hell is his brother?

His eyes finally clear, he's on his back and looking up at miles of flat grey sky. His eyes drift; he sees a wall of scaling, sun-faded clap board, bordered by dying beige grass struggling out of tan dirt. "Holy fuck…what the hell?" What the fuck happened to the gas station? Where the fuck was he—and where the fuck is _Sam?_

He pulls himself up and bites off a curse as bolts of hot pain rip through his ribs, his neck feels like rope burn times ten. His head's full of jagged lightning, like the worst fucking migraine in the world. It's a searing poker burning through his brain, spreading outward and washing over his skin like an acid bath—no way he can keep from screaming like a bitch. "FUCK! Fuck oh god, fuck me, oh fuck…"

"Shut up; be glad we didn’t just toss you out for the rag-pickers. Next time I see your ass, you owe me for a night's rent. Sleepin' unner my fuckin' pool table…" The guy leaning out of a doorway, elbow jamming a dilapidated screen door open, has a scowl on his face like he just found Dean fucking his sister. "Take off, ya tard. Dry out." The scowl lessened; there might even have been an infinitesimal hint of fondness in the man's frown. "Don’t get killed," he tosses out before letting the door slam shut.

Dean's wondering what the fuck just happened. He inhales in confusion and then, the smell hits him—the one he was damn familiar with from before, when hell was the all night movie show in his head, and Sam was fucking a demon bitch—

The stink's coming from him--booze, the way it smells when it's steeped in the clothes, in the skin. He smells like he's a three day binge away from a shower, but. He's not drunk. Not so fucking ever. He's beyond sober. He's so beyond sober he probably couldn't get drunk if he tried.

Sun's bright overhead now, like Steven Spielberg bright, almost too perfect, little wispy white clouds floating past and leaching the grey out of the sky. Dean staggers to his feet, whirling around. This place…it's old. All the buildings were sun-faded and looked about to fall down. He's in what looks like some back street, a dirt paved road. The air smelled of piss and dust and burnt meat, sun's so damn bright it makes his eyes burn. Somehow it reminds him of Castiel, of the light that Lucifer put out right before hell tore loose---reminds him of Sam. The memories don't hurt this time—at least, not physically. But the torrent of horror that streams through his mind…something was wrong with Sam, whatever it was, Dean was sure it was something horribly, _horribly,_ wrong….

"Oh no, no-fuck—Sam. No, s'dream-- _nightmare."_ In his head, Sam reaches out to him and—and—he--

When the rest of the world comes back again, he's on his knees, face in the dust, rocking back and forth, hands clawing each other over his head. This is, can't be, not real. He can't imagine Sam tearing his hand off like that--no. He clenches his hand—whole and unscarred. Has to be a false memory, something his mind twisted up from the truth.

He sees fiery holes staring at him from his brother's face. Feels Sam's hand rummage in his chest. But no, that's not real, it's a hell memory, one of Alistair's lies, he's sure of it…Dean screams his grief and confusion into the dirt. Wherever he is, it's some place he has no family close, no nothing. When shit blew up, Cas must have sent him…some place Sam wasn't but why?

Pain stabs at the back of his eyes. Doesn't matter. Never did. Wherever Sam is, Dean's going to find him. He's going to find him and get him back.

Dean drags himself up, and scrubs at his eyes, grimacing at the mud that leaves behind on his sleeve—he's even got the taste of it in his mouth. He must have inhaled a ton of dust laying in the road and crying like a bitch. He works up a thick glob of muddy saliva, spits it to the ground. Was fuckin' hard not to feel sorry for himself, a bit. And why the fuck not. He was alone, the way he'd always known deep down it would end up being.

Right. So, Cas has sent him to fuckin'…he peers around…Dodge City, looks like. Complete with clapboard sided buildings, and horse troughs and, and…maybe he'd ended up in one of those Wild West recreation things?

He pats at his reeking clothes, going through his pockets for ID, some kind of weapon—a clue as to what the fuck was going on.

He's got nothing. He sighs, decides it could be worse. Okay dude…pick a direction and walk. Dean takes a step and pain screams up his legs. He drops to his knees, feels like he's had railroad spikes driven into them—and he knows exactly what _that_ feels like. He swears, loud and long and foul. When he catches up with Sam again, he's going to kick his ass good for not sticking close—but the thought doesn't make him feel better or justified, it’s a kick to the middle of his chest is what it is, and his throat tightens with the aching pain. He's disgusted with himself as tears flow, raises his hands to wipe his face--and shouts.

He's got a fuckin' _beard_ —not a manly scruff, it was a freakin' beard. ZZ fuckin' Top beard—

"HEY!" He staggers to the door the man had gone into—the place that must have been a bar. "Open up; let me in, god damn it!" How the fuck long has he been here? God fucking damn it--he's lost time, and that's happened to him before--but how much time, and what's been going on with him while he was out?

"Go home, crazy bastard!" Dean recognizes the voice—it's the big guy. "No demon conspiracy talk today, yahear? You did your bit--the war's over!"

Dean staggers back, falls on his ass. Demons. Fuck—he was stranded in some acid-laced Frontierland with nothing to protect himself—no gun, no salt, iron, nothing. He's unarmed and uninformed…could things possibly get worse? He curses, slaps a hand over his face for even _thinking_ that shit! It's like begging for a lightning strike, for god's sake.

"Relax." A voice behind him makes him jump. "Want me to take you to the shelter, old-timer?"

"Old-timer? What the fuck are you talking about?"

The girl gives him a smile and says, "Come on, pops. Min an' Angel've probably been looking for you. Let's get you something hot to eat, maybe a shower, hunh?"

"I—I don't know what you're talking about. I—I'm—looking for my brother." Dean flinches at how wobbly his voice sounds, but this shit's all a bit much to process, plus he was starving and thirsty and needed a drink and fuck--so fucking tired it hurt. "My brother…"

"Brother?" She gets this look, kind of half embarrassed, half sad. "I'm sorry, got no idea where your brother is…come on, okay? How 'bout we look around, see if we find him."

Sure, she was talking to him like a wary parent promising a kid anything to head off a tantrum but right now, all he knows is someone wants to help him, and that just cuts right through his already rocky defenses. He clenches his jaw, hard. Swear to god, he'll jab his eyes out before he cries in front of a chick. He's done enough fucking crying for a lifetime.

She leads him down the street, chattering on about something. Not much of what she says makes sense to him, but he's more than happy to listen to the words, just enjoy the sound of her voice, light and lilting and wonderfully feminine without a hint of hidden meaning or threat.

 

The town might be faded and worn, but there are people all around, real people with real lives--the farther they walk the more people he sees and suddenly, it's all fucking overwhelming. He gets the feeling that he's been lonely, terribly alone. But this--living, breathing, _people,_ god…an odd memory floats up out of the murky pit of his mind, something about vases full of flowers and how beautiful they were but these people, hustling about some business only they know, are more beautiful by far.

The girl has them cross over to a wider street, with one story, shot gun-style buildings on either side. The whole place still looks like Frontierland, but Dean supposes to each his own, what the hell. He takes note of an old fashioned looking grocery complete with crates of fruit displayed on the sidewalk. Good to know if he needs to snatch a quick breakfast. A few buildings down, a white building with a red cross painted on the side catches his eye—probably a country clinic. He's always preferred small places like that to the big hospitals. The care was always pretty decent and it was easier running insurance fraud on them. They pass a barbershop and Dean smirks at the rotating red and white wooden pole. Fingers the mat hanging off his face with distaste. Shit, breakfast he can steal or sweet talk his way into, but a haircut and shave, man—hard to sweet talk his way into that.

He's grumbling to himself, dragging his feet through the dust. The girl whose name he still doesn't know is making little pleased noises at the window of a clothing shop filled with obviously handmade clothes. Dean stops and stares, trying to put things together. The clothes aren't vintage copies, there's no national brand stuff at all…he shrugs and trots to catch up with the girl when she calls out to him.

She stops a little further down to call into the open doorway of a jewelry shop, a little more prosperous than the other buildings. The stuff in the window takes his attention away from the girl. There's not much gold jewelry but he recognizes silver—lots and lots of silver. Some of the stuff looks like iron. He studies the shapes of it, brows crinkling together. Circles, triangles, stars—  
His throat feels too tight and he rubs his knuckles against it without thinking, and suddenly his eyes make sense of what he's seeing. Some of the jewelry in the window is just that: bracelets and pendants, clever decorative pieces worked into the shape of animals, flowers. Along one low shelf though, are protective sigils, old, old symbols and newer ones, too. The work is detailed, precise—he has a hard time looking away from an elaborately etched and enameled protective seal. It's familiar, in an inside out kind of way.

The girl comes back and has to jerk him away from the window. He shivers hard and trots after her. He should feel happier knowing that folks here seemed to know what was lurking in the dark. It's just that…most of what was in the window is good stuff, protective stuff, but a few of those pieces, it would only take a twist or two, an inversion, to make it not and he feels that that's something he didn't know before…whatever happened, happened. Somehow, the thought makes him miss Sam so crazily much, his heart is a burning, pulsing hole in his chest, makes him want to be back with his brother _now,_ crawling across the floor to him… _maybe, if he brought Sam a knife he'd take him back…._

Dean rocks under the sensation of falling from a height, gasps aloud at what's boiling in his head. He staggers, startling the girl. She gives him a narrow-eyed look, but apparently comes to the conclusion he's not about to totally lose his shit and drags him along a little faster. He's more than happy to run along with her. He wants away from the window and whatever the fuck that shit was in his head.

Eventually they're past the busy center of town and into a quieter, even shabbier, part. The girl pulls him past what looks like a lumberyard and into an alleyway behind it. For one wild second, Dean wonders if she's dragged him out all this way to kill him, and then they're in front of a long, low, building something like a Quonset hut. There's a sign over the door, _Here Find Shelter._ Dean shrugs. He's not a stranger to shelters and soup kitchens.

The girl opens the door. "You goin' in, old timer?"

Dean wishes she'd fucking stop with the old timer business—thirty two's not that fucking old, for god's sake. He stamps across the wide wooden porch and shoulders his way past her. "Thanks," he mutters, and she snorts, lets go of the door.

"Take care buddy, see ya next time."

Inside, it smells like soup and bleach and toilet cleaner. His nose filters out those smells and then he picks up a more pleasant smell of old paper; old wood…for a moment, comforting in their familiarity. About a dozen women and men of various ages are sitting at tables scattered around the dim room. Windows high in the unpainted wood wall try and let some of the bright sunlight in but the light's fighting a losing battle against the grime frosting the windows. Dean almost expects to see candles lighting the place, but there are lamps scattered here and there on the tables and a dying florescent fixture running down the center of the ceiling hums as it casts a weird, ghostly light. He walks slowly deeper into the room and some of the men lift their chins at him. "Hunter," they say, like it's a greeting, and no one seems surprised he doesn't answer. They look at him with narrow, knowing eyes, but only one or two show him any real interest. One old guy says, "Good day today, son? That's good, that's good." Dean walks past him without a word. He's not sure what to say to people who seem to know him when he has no idea who they are.

The kitchen at the end of the room catches his eye, becomes his goal. It's behind a half wall, and the wide shelf that tops it holds trays and utensils, glasses are neatly stacked opposite them. Dean's stomach lets out a loud growl. Feels like it's been a hell of a long time, and he's ready to eat whatever they've got cooking. An older woman pushes past him, a tray stacked with dirty dishes held in her hands. The tray looks heavy, so Dean says, "hey, let me grab that." She looks startled, but quickly gives him a pleased smile.

"Thanks. The boys are late today," she says, blowing stray wisps of graying hair out of her eyes. "I'm glad you're…" Dean catches the hesitation and her momentarily wavering expression—"feeling all right this morning." She's good at covering it but Dean has spent a lifetime-- _lifetimes_ \--learning to read people, ferreting out clues subtle as a hitch in breathing, the flicker of an eyelid.

Reading this woman is like reading a blinking neon sign forty feet high. Dean can tell that she's glad he's steady, which means there must be times that he's fucked up—bad enough for everyone to know. He inhales, picks up the odor of stale booze again and it hits him… _Fuck me, what--I'm the town drunk?_

She's stopped and is staring at him warily, checking him out and looks ready to deck him if he jumps wrong, so Dean manages to force a pretty realistic smile at her and gets a weary smile in return. He balances the tray of rattling dishes stacked haphazardly, the sense memory of some distant temporary job guiding his hand, and follows the woman back to the kitchen. When he steps in the door the kitchen crew looks up. Some seem surprised to see him, a few try to surreptitiously hide the knives they're working with. He snorts. Guess he's not a welcome guest as far as these guys are concerned. Still, they don’t look frightened, really. Their expressions are pretty much like the woman's—an alert kind of wary. Dean shakes his head. Fabulous. So, he's either Town Drunk, or the town's resident Crazy. Damn it. Castiel--whatever he did, however he did it--was definitely going on his list of asses to be kicked, with prejudice. He sighs, sick and tired of trying to figure it all out. Wanting it all to be…the way it used to be.

Yeah, like that was fucking going to happen.


	9. Then An Angel

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/roxymissrose/pic/000dxagz/)

**Then An Angel**  


 _"Why is it always me? Why do I gotta be the one?"_

  
Min, as he finds out she's called, has him set the trays down, then sends him back out to the dining room with a huge bowl of soup and a Sam-fist sized chunk of bread. First bite has him moaning, it's that fucking good. Not thin and stretched with water like most shelter cuisine, but thick and full of tender chunks of meat, and thick cuts of vegetable. And screw Sammy, he did so eat veggies from time to time, especially when they were like this, cooked to mush and covered with creamy broth, salty and slightly peppery. It disturbs him a wee bit that he's not sure what the meat is, but his unease is outvoted by his hunger.

Dean's slurping down his second cup of coffee when the doors flies open and a group of young kids come tumbling in.

"Knock off that noise, ya frickin' punks," yells one of the table sitters, and Min comes dashing out. "Finally. Here you go, grab those trays and bus the rest of them tables, Mark. Carlos, you got broom duty-- Fredo, in the kitchen with tha dishes for you, right now. And Angel…you know what to do."

She gets a rapid-fire of disgruntled snorts in reply but Dean can tell none of the kids are really annoyed, except one, a squinty-eyed, gangly thing Dean judges to be almost as tall as he is. He's sporting a pimpled triangle of a head on a skimpy stalk of a neck, all angles and long bones and lots of jaw. The kid's head is shaved but for a long, bleached-blond fringe hanging into his eyes—and laughably, he's got a skimpy ring of fuzz around his mouth that looks like dirt—the some-day-going-to-be beginning of a beard. Min comes up on one side of the kid and slips an arm around him. She pulls him into a hug that's more threat than affection. Kid rolls his eyes and looks resigned to both hug and threat.

"Angel," Min murmurs, but not low enough that Dean can't hear her, "He's feeling pretty good today. Not fighting ghosts…how about you take care of him, and let the other boys help out in the kitchen? And don't let anyone give him anything to drink, y'hear?"

"Why is it always me? Why do I gotta be the one?" the kid complains and Min just shakes her head.

"Because you're the only one he'll listen to, you little shit."

Dean's jaw cramps. "Hey, I'm right here. Mind not talking about me like I'm not?"

The kid looks over and smirks. "Well, well, you are, aren't you? Whatsa matter, not saving the world today? You and your hunter pals, you're all a piece a work."

Min huffs in irritation and smacks the kid hard enough to bounce his head around. "Angel! Show some respect, you pissant little bastard. You talkin' 'bout my dad—a Hunter too, and was in the War." She glances back at a table by the kitchen door, at a white-haired man sitting there. Big arms were crossed over a huge chest, muscles gone to fat with age…he was gently snoring, arms crossed and his chin dipped down resting on that chest.

Angel looks apologetic—or a half decent impression of it. Dean glances back to at Min's dad. The guy was old, and the spitting image of James Earl Jones…even asleep Dean could tell he was no one to fuck with. No wonder Angel looked ready to apologize.

Some of the sitters start cursing the kid, disgruntled mumbling along the line of "we saved your useless asses…we kept you from getting ass-raped by demons, you ungrateful shit…might be eighty, but I can still kick your ass, bitch..."

"Ahh, shut up. If you old farts saw as much action as you claim, you'd be as nuts as old demon killer here. Or drink as much." Angel jerks his chin at Dean and Dean flips the little fuck off.  
"Fuck you," Dean says, "if the old guy does go to kick your ass, I'm holding you down." The kid snorts and plops himself down at Dean's table, snags a piece of bread. He watches Dean as he chews, completely confident that Dean won’t knock him off his chair for stealing his food and it makes Dean wonder who the hell this kid thinks he is to him? Dean pulls a piece off the bread left and chews too. They watch each other for a few moments before Dean asks, "So…is that what I do," Dean muses, "I drink?"

"Bru, you're sellin' yourself short—you don't just drink," the kid croons. "You _DRINK_. A _lot._ "

"I'm a drunk." Dean feels himself out…there's no wanting of it, he doesn't feel the slightest bit of craving, hell, he doesn't give a damn about a drink…but the way everyone reacts to him, like he's some kind of unpredictable nutcase…but a basically harmless one. He's not sure which pisses him off more. Thinking about it makes his head hurt and pisses him off and he does kind of want to slam his fist into someone, anyone…."A drunk."

"Well…" the boy Angel sneers outright now. "If by 'a drunk' you mean you suck down tubs full of liverkiller, talk weird bullshit about weirder shit and end the evening by throwing up in your hands and passing out on the floor, than, yeah. You're a drunk."

Dean stops chewing. Stares at Angel. "I did all that last night?"

"No, sir," the kid responds, doing a decent imitation of respect, _sounds just like Sam_ and then kills Dean's slight relief by continuing, "You do that every night."

"Jesus…I'm a drunk. No, I'm a _crazy_ drunk. What the fuck—" Dean stops thinking about it. He can't do anything at the moment, and he's got food in front of him so he falls back on Dad's training. Take advantage of food when you've got it, you never know when you won't. So, he keeps eating, manages to fend off Angel's forays towards his coffee and when he's done, follows a bit of training he should have done first, and scopes out the place he's landed in. Between sips of just barely decent coffee, he sees that the room is more of a hall, long, wide, and looking somewhat like an old time lodge, with its rough wooden walls and timbered ceiling. There's the doors behind him, and another exit on the wall facing him. Transom style windows are set high in the walls. No way he'd be able to get out of them, too narrow. He lets the thought go—it's just an idle observation. They do let in a little more light as the sun moves, and the light reflects off bits of mica in the rough cut stone that makes up the huge fireplace. It's only when he actually looks at the fireplace and the cow's skull hanging on it, that he sees the screen hanging over the skull—a strangely familiar screen even though it's so odd he can't place where he could have seen something like it. It was flat, a dead sort of silvery grey.

The weird looking screen over the fireplace suddenly lights up as Dean's studying it and he jerks back, startled. The silvery surface giving over to eye watering flashes of color until it settles into colorless static. There's a high pitched whine, and then it spits out a long howling roll of sound. The static on the screen crackles, smoothes out into an image of roses. The room groans as one, feet shuffle impatiently, and some of the crowd gets up and walks out.

"Ya, fuck, here comes the inspirational hour. Why've we gotta listen to this shit?" one of the older guys complains. A guy sitting near him, about Dean's age, digs an elbow in his ribs.

"Good to know what the enemy is doing, isn't it? Keep an eye on 'em."

"Maybe, but it's damn borin' programmin'." The room breaks into laughter but Dean's got a feeling what's about to happen is something he's not gonna like. He keeps an eye on the screen. A white crown against a dark green background pops up, along with a blast of some kind of corny, semi-martial music. A pretty girl, with long black hair and a wide smile outlined in red, comes into view as the crown fades out. "A good evening to you, citizen family. Brother Prince greets you and wishes you healthwealth." Her image fades into a video of—

Dean jerks back in his chair, dropping his cup and jostling the cursing kid. "Holy fucking shit…"

The kid drags an old bandana out of somewhere and mops up the spilt coffee. "I know," he mutters. "I hate that asshole too."

One of the other old guys agrees. "Everybody hates that asshole," and then stares grimly into his own coffee cup, tapping the edge with the two fingers remaining on his right hand. Min's dad jerks awake and the look he levels at the picture on the screen makes Dean shudder.

In the bright sunlight, in a beautiful garden, his brother's parading around in a ridiculous white suit, a hotel in the background. He's waving, smiling…Sam's surrounded by black eyed body guards. A buzz builds in Dean's ears, louder and louder, his chest is wrapped around with too tight bands, his vision blurs….

By the time Dean's back in the real world the newscaster or whatever she is, is wrapping up the broadcast. She holds up a piece of parchment, painted with some numbers and a small skull. Rose canes twine in and out of the skull's eyeholes…Dean feels his gut lurch up. He claps a hand over his mouth…gets in a flash of horror-coated memory that she's not holding up parchment. The crowd around him lets out a low groan…a thick crimson drop falls from the 'parchment' and is clearly visible on her white desktop. That circle of blood becomes all Dean can see.

"Proof that they are still among us, still conspiring to bring harm to Brother Prince and War back to the world. When you find someone in the city wearing a symbol like this or this—" and a few different styles of tattoos flash by on the screen, most of them slightly disfigured. Dean recognizes them all and knows that they've been defaced in slight ways to break their power. "—then do your duty. Alive is preferred, but proof of death is also acceptable. Your reward will be the pride in your duty, and rightly so…and of course a fat, healthy check. Brother Prince knows pride only goes so far towards feeding the family." She gives a coquettish wink to the audience and fades again to a picture of Sam, sitting prim and proper on a huge burgundy chair that looks familiar in a very bad way.

"What the fuck is going on? What the hell— _Sam?"_

"Shut _up,"_ the kid hisses and punches Dean in the arm hard enough to make it go numb. The fucking little bitch had Sam's accuracy in hitting the dead spot. "Don’t say his name, you'll bring him up."

"He's my brother, not fucking Voldemort," Dean snaps, rubbing his arm, but deep inside, he shivers...and doesn't say Sam's name aloud again.

Everyone's eyes are on him, assessing, weighing...whatever judgment they reached must have come down on his side. They mostly ignore him again. Except for one fucking jokester who says, "Ah, leave him alone. Don't you know you don't have to worry about him? He's the great Dean Winchester, the one who kept that fucking bastard from ruining the whole planet, The Scapegoat."

Dean narrows his eyes at the old coot and says "What's that mean? So, I'm Dean Winchester—what of it?" and the crowd breaks out into laughter. Dean slams his chair back and comes to his feet, ready to throw punches, but just as he clears the table and the annoying kid tangling up in his way, Min comes rushing out of the kitchen.

"You leave De alone, you hear me? Angel—I told you to look after him."

Dean finds it hard to believe that Angel's squinty little eyes can screw up even tighter. His huge jaw juts out even more with anger, or something. "I am taking care of him," he shouts. "No one else is gonna deal with the crazy sonofa bitch," he says but in a barely audible mumble and Dean, taking in the angry set to Min's mouth that makes her look as scary as her dad, figures the kid isn't completely stupid.

"Well, do something else—get him settled for the night. Get him some liverkiller if you have to." Min searches her pocket and tosses something to Angel that he snatches out of the air with a pleased smile. She pushes her braids back from her face with a very weighty sigh. Behind her, the screen shivers and screeches before settling into an image of the newscaster again. "Oh great," she mutters and hustles off to the kitchen.

"From our Brother Prince in beautiful Dys, a pleasant good night to all our citizen families," the newscaster practically oozes smarm, and the screen blats the stupid shit music again, and goes blank.

"Thank fuck," one of the men says. "Thank fuck we're well out of it or that fucking thing would be going all day and night."

Dean grabs the kid—Angel--by the arm. "Get me out of here, I need to—to—think about stuff."

"Yeah, yeah, stuff—sure you're right." Angel replies and rips his arm out of Dean's grasp. "Min. we’re leaving." He shouts towards the back. Min warns him to be careful and he snorts, loud. "Come on, crazy bastard, let's got get a room somewhere."

"My name's Dean, you little fuck, and I don’t think I want to get a room with you."

"Dean, yeah, yeah, Dean Winchester—you and a shit ton of other crazies," the kid growls. "Look, I don’t give a shit if you don’t want a room with me, bru—shit, _smell_ you, it's no treat for me either. But Min's got some kind of thing for you, and I been elected to be Crazy Wrangler." Angel casts a look back at Min, peering out of the kitchen pass-through and smirks when she turns away.

They end up in a darker part of town, unbelievably even crappier looking then where the shelter had been. The kid stops in front of a house that looks to be on a slight tilt, pulls Dean with him up the stairs of a rickety porch, the wood shrieking with their footsteps. Inside, the place is even less attractive. It smells worse than a ghoul, and someone wasted a perfectly good gallon of dirt colored paint. Seems the place is sort of a boarding house, looks to Dean to be more of a rent by the hour than by the week kind of place…again, nothing he's not used to. Angel bickers with some guy Dean takes to be the landlord, leaves with him after a heated discussion. "I'm gonna go get the room key," he tells Dean. "Wait here."

Dean lets him go with a nod and stands there, tapping his finger against his thigh waiting for Angel to come back with the key. It takes him that long to get it…the dude's desk is right there in what passes for the lobby and they walked past it…his stomach cramps, and he swallows hard. But he doesn't feel bad for what the kid's doing. Not his business. Besides, he's done it himself. _But only for Sam_ whispers in the black empty spaces between memories. Whatever. Whoever the fuck this kid was, he wasn't family, wasn't his responsibility, and he told his fucking, whiny inner crybitch to shut the hell up.

Angel came back alone, wincing a little as his came up the narrow, dark hallway. "Let's go."

He wasn't talking and Dean wasn't asking. It wasn't his damn business and he didn't give a fuck. It was enough he could lay down this night and be halfway safe…shit. He'd figure something out. Fuck. Some way to pay this kid back. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "They got a shower in this dump?"

"The fuck—really? No, really? And y'know, thank god." The kid jiggles the doorknob--cursing and swearing when it won't open right away that he's going to go back down to the lobby and beat the shit out of that lying motherfucker, just wait--before the door pops open.

Dean stamps into the room, scowling. "You…what the fuck, you saying I'm afraid of water or something?" not expecting the reluctant answer he gets.

"Um…you always say the…water turns to blood on your skin. You. You scream a lot. And fight like a—like a—" The kid gives him a sideways glance.

"Like a crazy person," Dean finishes for him. He's sure this conversation can only be improved by throwing up. Something had happened to him, really bad, something more involved than Castiel throwing him…into the future? Or sideways into some freaky alternate universe? He rubs his mouth hard…and Sammy, what's Sammy done?

"Look…if you want to shower, I can get you some clean clothes…"

The little fuck looks so hopeful Dean has to smile. "Yeah, if I can get some, these are ripe—shit, they're rotten. I hate to think what's living in here with me." The look he got back from Angel…it pinched right under his heart. Fucking kid.

"Great, great—grab a shower—back down the hall, there's a couple of showers. All towels and stuff are back there. Soap too. Oh—here." He hunts around in his pocket and drops a couple of what look like silver slugs into Dean's hand—what Min had given him. "There's a paybox, it'll give you soap. Gonna run back to the shelter and be right back. Don't change your mind, okay?"

"Kid!" Dean snaps, and stalks off towards the shower room. Whatever minuscule drab of dignity he's got left, he preserves by not looking back. He can take a shower by himself, he's not nervous, damn it. Not one bit.

He finds the shower room quickly, led on by the scent of damp wood and mildew. "Great, lovely." But then again, he's showered in worse places, worse by far. The room was lit like an operating room, bright harsh lights, green tiled walls and floors. It brought back memories of high school and locker rooms, smelt even worse. Partitions were there to give the illusion of privacy. Looking at the setup, Dean shrugs. Definitely seen worse, at least the showerheads were big. Right inside the entrance was a beat up old vending machine, a lot like the machines he'd grown up with--rest stop magic they'd been, when he was a kid. This one held packets of soap and toothpaste and shaving cream, lady stuff and…condoms and lube. Good to know, he thought. Just in case. He sticks a slug in and gets change and soap. Shrugs and stuffs another in to get condoms. Just in case.

Next to the machine an alcove holds hooks, a bench and a stack of towels and washrags. There's a shelf running the width of it, about chest height for him, a place to put belongings, he guesses. He doesn't bother with the hooks or the shelf, just kicks his boots off and skims off the filthy rags with relief, lets them fall to the floor. The kid comes up right then, arms full of stuff that smells like institutional laundry soap. Looks like jeans and a shirt, underthings and socks. Good. Wearing boots and no socks, not a good idea. Angel's attention is on his bundle, he starts talking before even looking at Dean, obviously enthusiastic at the thought of getting rid of Dean's stench, a plan he's more than on board with.

"Okay. These should fit ya…your boots look okay, we can grab a boot brush here and give 'em a once over, Min'll like that. Now listen De, I'm tellin' ya, you gotta take em off, okay—can't get in the shower with your boots on—oh. Oh. Oh…" He fixes Dean with an open-mouthed stare, his eyes getting wider and wider until he looks like a guppy having a heart attack—flinches when Dean coughs.

"I'm gonna get in the shower, if you’re done with inventory, there."

Kid's cheeks flush an angry red and he stammers, "Fuck you," and throws the clothes down on the bench before storming off.

 _What set the kid off now?_ Dean shakes his head. Kids. All bitches at that certain age…he peers after Angel. Kid's probably, what—seventeen? All hormonal and bitchy, just like Sam at that age.

The water pressure was surprisingly decent, better than some motels. The water's warm enough, if not exactly as hot as he liked it, and the soap…, well, it's got a smell like wet paper bags but it lathers pretty good and his skin was crawling and he was so fucking dirty, it was making him gag, so all in all, not bad. He pours the soap powder on the thin rag and scrubs like it's the last he's going to do, and god, he can't help moaning…feels like he hasn't bathed in a million years. It's not long before his skin is starting to turn red, he's scrubbing so hard, but it's so good, just…good to finally feel clean and to be in the shower alone, to wash alone, no one else's hands on him but his own….Dean blinks. What in the fuck was that, he wonders. A little sharp pain zings him between the eyes before fading and it sinks in that some of that pounding he's hearing isn't inside his head—it's Angel beating impatiently on the thin door. "Drop yer junk and get the frick out all ready."

He's toweling down, damp hair curling around his face and down his neck, and the matted beard is dripping wet on his chin when it hits him—sure. "Kid…can I get shaving gear somewhere? I mean, not that shit in the vending machine." The guppy look is back, the kid's actually got his hand over his heart, and looks totally shocked. It takes all of Dean's will power not to kick his ass. "What, god damn it, I want this off, okay? Jesus."

"No, really? Really? I mean—'cause it's gross. And it catches food, believe me, I know this too well." His eyes go back to that irritating squint and he says, mean and snippy, "And maybe you'll even get laid, stop being such a fucking pain in the ass bitch all the time…."

"Shit kid, I could sport this mat and be wearing fucking kleenix boxes on my feet and still get laid."

"Kleenix—what the fuck is a kleenix box…never mind," Kid peered hard at him, a curious, assessing look, "Do you know how that whole fuckin' thing works? Never seen ya even near a bitch."

" _Bitch?_ No wonder you don’t get laid."

"Hey, I never said _I_ wasn't getting laid!"

"You don't have to," Dean smirked.


	10. Angel Explains

Dean comes out of the tiny bathroom, shaved clean. It's weird that when he had the beard, he didn't feel it, but now that he's shaved it off…he slides his hand over his chin and huffs at the smoothness. The feeling that started in the shower was growing—he's beginning to feel more settled—a bit more confident. He's got no idea what the fuck's going on, or where he is or what's happened to Cas or to Sam but…at least he knows who the fuck he is now. And pretty soon, he'll catch up with Sammy and drag his head out of his ass and things'll be like they're supposed to be, again.

Angel comes loping up to the shower, all pumping elbows and knobby knees, shouts, "Hey you done yet—" and freezes, squinty eyes gone totally round, cheeks flare red, right up to the tips of his ears and his mouth drops open.

"You…you…gosh."

Den crinkles his eyes at the kid—he knows how different he looks now, way less crazy, at any rate. "I'm a rock star, right?" he grins.

"You're so…" Angel gulps, straightens his face and the red recedes a bit. "Hunh, you're a lot younger than I thought you were, now that all that hair and dirt is gone." He sniffs deeply. "I kinda thought the stink was just a part of you…"

"Yeah, thanks—fuck you too. Felt like I haven't showered in weeks," Dean says and smoothes his hand over his clean chin again.

"Um, that sounds about right," Angel says in an offhand way. He's still studying Dean like he's a particularly interesting science project. "S'weird, it's like talking to a completely different person, bru. Like night and day. It's…it's good. Real good."

"I'm sure…" Dean sighs. "So, where's the room, I'm tired as a motherfuck."

"Unh, room, room—oh. Room's down there." He stays leaning against the shower room wall as Dean walks by and Dean quirks an eyebrow.

"Well? You coming?"

"You don't like people sleeping with you."

"Uh, I'm not planning on fucking you, dude," Dean says slowly and carefully, like the kid's missing a few cards from the deck. "All I want is some shut eye. If you can restrain yourself, we can share."

"Christe, no! I mean…you know what, I'll explain it to you tomorrow. Christe." He glares at Dean like he's waiting for something to happen, finally gets that Dean hasn't moved. "You're not going to the room until I come, are you?"

Angel stomps down the hall and Dean saunters behind him, grinning. The set of the kid's shoulders makes him laugh—it's obvious he's pissed Angel off again. Scrawny little thing, he is, with shoulder blades like wings…delicate boned, thin skinned, and so ready to fight…his thoughts soften, his heart warms a bit watching the kid kick the door open…it's like good old days long, long past. He watches the boy and can't help but smile.

Until he walks into the shabby little room and sees that there's only one bed in a room literally as big as a closet. But the invitation is out and damn, that thing is going to be a tight fit. He stares a long moment before shrugging. It's not the first time he's had to share close quarters. "Don't snore, don’t fart, and don’t rub yourself off on me in the middle of the night," he says and drops the clean clothes on a chair. Doesn’t bother trying to hide as he pulls on the boxers and a t-shirt almost translucent with age and multiple washings.

"What—I never—fuck you man--" Angel sputters and "—oh fuck you," he says again when Dean starts laughing.

"Your face. You remind me of—of—" And just that quick laughter's gone. Suddenly he's tired, so fucking tired, and sleep begs him to put his head down and shut off for a bit. He practically staggers to the narrow bed, drops down on it with a long drawn out sigh. His body aches as it settles into the musty mattress, the thin blanket barely covers his feet—but it's a blanket and it's clean and he's never really been a picky one. Angel slides in after, carefully not touching which is stupid, so he shoves up against the kid, smirks at his scandalized gasp. He pushes the pillow towards the kid…kind of force of habit, and he curses at himself silently, but doesn't reach for the pillow back.

Right before Dean shuts the light off, Angel has the fucking nerve to give him a real look of sympathy and worse, calls him Dean when he says goodnight. Fucker.

It's not long before Angel's snoring like a buzzsaw, and putting out enough heat that the blanket is a moot point…"Yeah, good night, you little bitch…" He's out before he knows it.

 _'Dean. You have to find Sam. if you find him, you can…fix him. He's hurting, he just doesn't know why…I did a terrible thing, committed a disastrous mistake.' Castiel walks towards him, his hands out. He takes Dean's face in his hands, and they're so soft and his eyes are so blue. It feels like coming home._

 _'Sam has done terrible things. He's been monstrous. But he's strong, stronger than you or he realizes. Go to Dys, make him whole again, you have the means.' Castiel smiles at him, the rare true smile that warms his eyes. He leans forward and his lips are a breath away from Dean's. When he speaks, Dean's lips tingle, every bit of exposed skin tingles with whatever it is that fills Castiel—angelic blowback--he almost laughs, but Castiel is saying, 'Angels watch over you Dean whether you want it or not. Full of grace, Dean, full of grace.' Dean's eyelids drop, and something wonderful lights him from inside and he sighs, Castiel's mouth is soft and warm and yeilding…._

The very fucking idea of Cas kissing him is a shock and sends him bolt upright in bed. Angel on his other side drops to the floor and pulls a knife from somewhere.

"What-what—"

"Fucking…" Dean drags both hands through his hair, his fingers clawed. "I...had a nightmare. Kind of. Damn. Have you ever heard of something called Dys?"

"Of course, you know…I mean, yeah. It's the Asshole's city. Where he fucks shit up from."

Dean's already thinking. "Asshole's name is Sam," he mutters, ignoring the horrified hiss that explodes from Angel. "I gotta get to Sammy. I have to save him from himself. This time, for real." He stares at Angel's pale face. "Whatever I have to do. I have to go there. So, can you tell me where this Dys place is?"

"Sure, you crazy fuck. I can tell you where it is. And after that, you leave me and Min and the rest of us alone, you hear? Go back to bed, it's still dark." Angel grabs his jacket off the floor and wraps himself in it, lies on the floor instead of the bed and turns his face to the wall—pretty much a shout to Dean to leave him alone. And so what, it's okay, he doesn't give a flying fuck—hell, he doesn't know the damn kid from Adam and he'd be more than fucking happy to leave the place where he was a fucked up drunk behind. _Fuck everyone, fuck 'em all._

 **Angel Explains**

_"So, what does plucking chickens have to do with laughing?"_

  
The next morning Dean wakes up to a whole new set of aches and problems. His back's killing him from lying on a mattress stuffed with gravel. And now, he's got to find this Dys, and…do what it was Cas told him to do. If only he could blow off last night's light show as a crazy dream…he sighs and rubs his face hard…but that last night, it wasn't a dream, he gets that.

Well, except for the part right before he woke up. Cas was more likely to kick his ass then to kiss him. He strokes a thumb over his cheek bone, feeling a brush of phantom pain…that angel had a punch like a mule, he thinks fondly. The fucker. Hopes that Cas visiting in his dream means that he's okay, had made it out of the cluster fuck of that last battle.

Now, it was up to Dean to find out what was what with Sammy, and pull his ass out or…or not.

~o0o~ 

The place the kid drags them to too fucking early in the morning is some café called Beanies. It squats on a corner, a block away from the crack hotel they'd spent the night in, and the few extra feet of sidewalk it gained by being on the corner was taken up with a couple of tables. It looked like an average café on an average block in an average small town. There was plenty of traffic in and out of the place, and the tables are all occupied, by a smiling mother with a toddler in her lap, a young couple who weren't going to finish their coffees, not the way they were eye-fucking each other. Just a bunch of average joes, some sipping coffee and reading thin newspapers that looked like the hand-cranked street papers of he'd get sometimes when he was a kid and haunting the streets between jobs. It was all so. Normal. The town might look faded and old, it might have its seamy side, but there was an upbeat feel to the place anyway. They might be struggling, these people, but they haven't given up. He's gotta admire their attitude, at the same time he knows it's pretty much pointless….

He watches Angel come back to their little table, his face darkened by a scowl. Dean's only known the kid for two days and the fucking scowl seems to be his default expression. Not only that, Dean would swear it's gotten even worse since he's shaved. Fucking kid'll barely look at him now. And true to form when Angel sits, he eyeballs everything except Dean. He does toss a couple of rolls at him, barely missing his face. "Here. Best we can afford right now. We can get breakfast at the shelter, but Bennie's got better coffee."

"Thanks, and by the way, you’re a real charming dining companion."

He answers Dean with an icy "Shut the fuck up" and Dean smirks around the mouthful of roll. What a pain in the ass--reminds him of 16 year old Sam, when no sitch was ever so good that Sam couldn't find the worm in the apple. Angel sees that Dean's smirking at him and his squinty eyes narrow even more, so much so that Dean wonders if he can see at all. "How old are you, Ki—Angel?"

"How's that your business, lokar? Too old to be worth anything, if you're thinking of fattening your pockets." When Dean keeps staring, mostly because he's kind of speechless, the kid goes on. "I'm eighteen…pretty sure. Might be older. Maybe younger." He shrugs.

"Do you—are you—what do you mean 'worth something'?" Dean practically sputters and now it's Angel who's smirking.

"Calm down, bru--. I'm shittin' ya. You know that stuff's illegal out here." They both quiet as the waiter comes and sets a couple of ugly mugs in front of them.

"There ya go, gents, two cups our finest kind. One sugar light, one black." He sweeps the few silver slugs Angel left on the table up and sails off, leaving Dean to stare into his mug. The smell that's coming off the cup….

"Jesus, I hope it tastes half as good as it smells," he moans, and Angel growls at him.

"It's a friggin' cup of coffee. Drink it, don't fuck it."

Dean snickers and grabs his mug. "Aw, you worried about my sexlife?" He takes another bite out of the really good roll, crispy outside, soft inside, and still warm from the oven, follows it with a slurp of coffee that has the little pain in the ass across from him rolling his eyes, and yeah, the coffee is so damn good, he needs to close his eyes and block out everything but the amazing brew sitting in his mouth, smooth, almost chocolate-y it's so rich, with the slightest tang of bitterness--just enough to let you know that what you're drinking isn't some mamby-pamby café-oh-lattie shit, just real, hot, and strong.

"Fuckin' get a room, you freak," he hears and opens his eyes to Angel glaring at him, red cheeked, lips in a fierce tight line—now it's Dean's turn to roll his eyes. He gets no warning before the kid wings a hoof right into Dean's shin.

"Ow, you little fuck," he grimaces. It's been a while since anyone kicked him like that and with such deadly accuracy—an electric thrill of temporary paralysis shivers down his leg. "Bitch!"

Angel smiles, the first real wide smile he's seen on the brat and it doesn't do him much service. His eyes disappear; his cheekbones take up most of his face, what's left is dominated by teeth. Dean mouths _bitch_ again and the smile slides into laughter, loud, braying laughter that startles the rest of the customers and makes Dean start to laugh too—before he knows it, he's bent over the table, holding his heaving sides and desperately begging Angel to knock it off, for god's sake.

Eventually laughter winds down into snickering…Dean feels like a bit of the weight he's carrying has lifted. "God, feels like I haven't laughed like that in…centuries," he grins at Angel. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well…I didn't even know you could laugh. I. I kinda like it."

"Come on now; don’t go all chick flick on me, dude."

"Hunh?" Angel shakes his head, says "…and then you go remind me what a lokar old…well, guess I can't really say old, can I?" Angel sweeps him with a speculative look, kind of weighing and appraising, and Dean has the uncomfortable feeling he's just been x-rayed inside and out. The sort of look he got a lot, when he was Angel's age. Not good, not good at all.

Angel's resting his chin on his fist now, kind of smirking at Dean. Says, "You're not old. How many years are you--and I get to ask, since you asked me."

"I know I'm not old—fucks sake," Dean practically shouts,"--I wish people would stop _sayin'_ that! I'm thirty two, dude, that's not old."

"I guess not…" Angel squints at him hard. "But you look a lot younger than that, though." He's silent, his gaze roaming over Dean. He's not flirting now—if that's what he'd been doing. Now, he's just taking stock, trying to figure Dean out—he blinks when Angel says, puzzled, "So, what does plucking chickens have to do with laughing?"

"Dude…what? Plucking chi—oh! Chick flicks. You know, movies aimed at chicks. Tear-jerkers, 'wah-wah, let's bond' moments…" he can see that the more he tries to explain, the more confused Angel gets, brow wrinkled, lips pursed, looks about a minute from going off—Dean grins at him. The kid could have been a Winchester…still, Angel's reaction makes it obvious that he's got no idea what a flick is, what Dean means by tear-jerker, what a _chick_ is…and all that drives the point home; he's a man out of sync with the world around him. He has no place here, though somehow Sam does.... "Never mind, tell me about Dys."

" _See?_ I don't get that! How do you not know about Dys? Or the asshole on the throne? Or that slavery is illegal in the Out towns or—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…back up. _Slavery?_ " Dean's leaning across the table, and instinct tells him to keep his voice barely audible. "What the fuck—like slaves? I mean—slave slaves? You can't have slaves in—anywhere. And especially not America."

"But. Well, yeah…you can. But since Brother Prince locked himself up in Dys and let the rest of the world go fuck itself, lots of places outlawed it, 'specially out here. 'swhy I'm here…" he drops his eyes and Dean can barely hear the mumble. "Got away."

Dean blinks. The world is definitely swimming around him, his head is definitely about to explode. "Kid…let's pretend that the hootch pickled my brain and I don’t know nothing about nothing."

"Not much of a stretch there," the brat tosses at him, but Dean decides to be generous and ignore it.

"Just…tell me anything. Assume I don’t know shit—shut up—and you've got to tell me the most obvious shit. Okay?"

Angel's face winkles like he's irritated, but he goes on. "Okay. So. Dys. Been there. Or close to there. I guess I was born in it or around the outskirts. Never had anyone tell me. I remember…not much except service—" and that one word he spits out like it's poison. "Dys used to be called something else a long time ago, but when Brother Prince killed the rulers of the old days, he renamed it. He used to only be in Dys during the summer months but now he's there all the time, running his empire. He doesn't leave the city, never leaves the city in the flesh."

"Um…so the Prince doesn't come out of…Dys. Why don’t people go in after him? Try and put him down? There are Hunters—what's wrong with them?"

"People don't go because the lands in-between are full of demons and monsters. It's different there in the In-Between. Like another world, with different rules and laws. Only the Chronos have safe passage, more or less. The Hunters are the hunted there. Still they do try and get to him. They say he can be killed…just…no one's found a way yet."

Dean muses. "Ooh--kay…explain the rest of that later. So Sa--he's not slaughtering people wholesale, he's not destroying the land…"

"Maybe not here, asshole, but Brother's armies and his enemies are tearing up the rest of the world—demons don't exactly get along like happy campers. They're like rats in a barrel, you know? Plus, they say one reason he's locked himself up is that he's busy looking for something he's lost, or got stolen off 'im…but they've been saying that for years and years. Some say he's looking for the Scapegoat." Angel eyeballs him hard. "I'm not explaining that before breakfast."

Dean feels faint. He's got a pretty good idea what Brother Prince is looking for, afraid of what Angel might mean by this scapegoat…he gets a flash of something, a memory or an old nightmare that makes his stomach turn. Angel doesn't notice, he's trapped in memories of his own. Dean sighs. Later, he'll deal with this shit later. Knocks Angel's boot with his own. "C'mon. Let's go eat."


	11. Angel Explains (part b)

"Okay, so Sa—Brother doesn't come out, but he's been fighting a war for years and years, a war that doesn’t touch you. Who's he fighting?"

"Princes of Hell. After Lucifer was erased by Brother, there was this big old hole in the hierarchy that the upper echelon demons of hell are trying to fill. They've got these crazy alliances that break and reform all the time. Fucking bastards—crazy, bloodthirsty and only happy when they're tearing each other or us to pieces."

"I don’t get why there's fighting—I—" Dean almost chokes on what comes out his mouth next but considering what Dad had told him all those years ago and what Yellow Eyes' minions had told him whenever they were feeling chatty, he had to ask, as much as it sucked. "I thought that BP was the King of hell, that he was, y'know, the 'chosen' one?"

Angel rolls his eyes, mutters _'BP—Christe—'_ before answering. "Well, they say he came out of nowhere declaring himself the king of hell. At first it was just him and then something happened and the system broke into factions--some of the rats claim him as king and some of them are still trying to put their own boys in."

"Jeez, kid...you sound like you were up close and personal with that stuff." Dean's blood runs cold, thinking of this kid, this defenseless kid in with 'the rats'.

"Not really. This shit is old news for the most part. I did hear things, back when I was…you know. My masters were human, thank god, and never close to the court or anything. I never had to deal with…stuff, like some." His cup suddenly becomes incredibly fascinating. "Besides, like I said, it was years ago."

Dean finds it hard to imagine Angel living the kind of fucked up life that a slave's life must be. "I'm sorry…sorry you had to do that. If I'd worked harder, if we'd planned better…" _If I'd done like Dad said, like Cas had said…_

"Look, crazy bastard. It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with the way the world went, no matter what the bottle tells you, okay? I was a slave; you were—are--a madida old drunk. This shit what happens to us? Nomportah. Life happens."

"But you…what, worked in the fields or something? Little kid like you? That's—that's horrible," he says, thinking about the only kind of slavery he's ever learned about and Angel gives him a look that shouts 'stupid'.

"Kids don’t pull that kind of work, bru," he said, "they're for inside. Old people like you do the hard labor, like when they're past it, when they're not fresh anymore. Or if they've fucked up bad," he says and frowns

"Stop," Dean holds up a hand, "Just—not now. Tell me, tell me more about this place. Tell me about where we are."

"We're in the Western Sector…and, okay, there's us, Out Towns. Out because we're out of the line of fire. We got the ocean on one side, iron and silver mines on the other…um, we make the food. Plant it, sell it. Make the iron and silver they bring us into protections. …past us and the mines, heading inward, there's the grass lands, pretty much belong to the floating cities. They lead to and from Chronopolis. From there you can see the gates of Dys. Chronopolis is neutral, they deal with everyone, they invent new things, they fix old things--they sell slaves. They think they're better than everyone because of what they do. The machines, vehicles, people…almost everything eventually funnels into Dys--Dys lives off everyone, like a parasite. It's not a nice place," he snorts.

"Yeah. I guess. Well, I gotta go there, so if you tell me how, I'll be on my way."

Angel gawps at him like he's suddenly grown wings and horns. "What. The. Fuck. You don’t just—you don't just _go_ there. It's not like you jump the tram and wave bye-bye, see you in a day or _never again._ Bru, you're on your own. Crazy ass."

Angel gets up and stomps out of the door, and Dean stares after. He catches Min staring from out of the kitchen, looking concerned, before she casts a look at him. Dean shrugs. _no idea…_

"He's right, bru," An old man at the next table breaks in. "It's stupid. No one wants to go there, not unless they're ready to sacrifice a lot, become the madida—and no telling if you ever get your soul back…" The old man voice drops as he goes, he's staring at Dean, peering closely. "You know, you always said you was his brother. And you do kind of favor him, now the dirt and the chin warmer's off…you really do favor him some kinda way…" the old man keeps staring, hard, like he wants to peel back his skull and look inside. "They say the real Winchester's got a price on'im… they say that's the thing Brother Prince lost…"

Dean leans over the table, planting his elbows wide and solid on the table, with a big smile in place. "How old would you say Winchester is now? How old are you?"

"So? The younger one never aged, looks as young now as he was then." A few people at the tables look in their direction, looking at Dean with new interest, and not just because he seemed to be clean and sober.

"Yeah well, the younger was the one with the power. The older one was just—there. Didn't have shit going for him, except a smart mouth. Odds are more than likely that fucker's dead and all other talk's just stupid rumor--right?" The old man nods and Dean snaps, "so maybe you wanna give the booze a rest, like I did. Save the few brain cells you got left. _Bru."_

Dean walks out and no one follows but figures he's got a day or less before someone is going to want to know for sure if he's Sammy's brother and if they know anything about Sam and him, then they know about the tattoos…which he's still got, as black and solid as the day they'd had them done. He rubs his chest as he trots along. Pain races across his skin, a flickering memory of hell plays in front of his eyes like his own private movie…Alistair peeling long strips from him, like his mom peeled an apple, only the face keeps changing, sometimes it's some weird… _guy_ in a white tunic, sometimes it's Sam…skin falls but the tattoo stays….

Dean shakes his head hard and keeps walking, fast as he can to the hotel, hoping Angel will be there.

~o0o~ 

He is, sitting cross-legged on the bed; blankets wrapped around his shoulders and pulled over his head like a cowl, like he's in a nest. All Dean can see is his eyes and they're wet and wide like a little lost pup's—before surprised relief lights his eyes. Which lasts about a lightning second before he drags that perpetual scowl onto his face again. Were all fucking kids the same damn way at this age? Dean's annoyed but at the same time that familiar face makes him grin. He can't help it, he likes this little shit. Angel's eyes widen a bit more, he pinks up, does that mouth twist thing that says 'I'm not smiling, especially not at you.'

"So." Dean says.

"So, someone's gotta keep an eye on ya, it might as well be me. Make sure you don't end up soaked in piss and drowned in your own vomit in some back alley."

"Aw, you say the sweetest things. The way you're crushing on me? It's cute."

"What? Fuck you, old man!" It's way too easy to dodge the pillow Angel throws, he laughs as he does and drops down across the bed. When Angel doesn't kick him off he settles in, muses out loud. "Fuck. Tell you what, little brother, ever since waking up I've felt naked. I mean, naked without a gun, without anything. I'm tired of feeling like bait. I need to get my hands on a gun. And a good knife. You know where I can get one? And I need supplies, silver, salt, iron—"

Angel leans over and presses his giant paw over Dean's mouth. "Un-unh. First thing, we gotta get out of town. And then we can get gear. I got us somethin' else we need."

Dean blinks, startled—first that Angel touched him like that, and second—he'd called the kid 'little brother'. Dean's glad the kid didn't seem to notice. It felt…natural and then again not, to call him that.

Angel doesn't seem to notice Dean's little crisis at all. He pulls a burlap sack from under the bed and dumps a couple of canteens out, and some dried bars that look like handfuls of berries and grains and some other glop mashed into bars." Min gave me these—they taste like ass but they're good fuel. We have to take what we can get—I don't have time to get proper money together. You're going to have wait on the toys, though. Might be able to take care of that out by the mines."

"Fuck…all right. Thanks. Thanks, and don't worry about the money; I'll see what I can do about that."

Angel's eyebrows fly up. "Oh, really? And how you gonna do that…?"

"Yes, really and shut up. Come on, let's get out of here."

By the time they got to the edge of town, it was full dark. A few houses here and there, relics of another time, dotted the road. They pass a couple of dogs, and Angel pushes Dean to the side, hissing under his breath. Dean feels sick for a second, thinking that he's been found, that Sam's hunted him down, and he's terrified about what comes next, until the dogs turn their furry, happy faces to them. Their tails whip the air and they circle Dean and Angel, wiggling and bowing and trying to convince them it's playtime.

Angel takes off after them, chasing them back and forth, playing with them as Dean trudges on, convinced the kid's a head case. He does look kind of cute, knees and elbows working overtime as he chases the dogs, a startlingly wide smile bringing out dimples. Dimples. Go figure. Dean shakes his head. The kid would be a heartbreaker if he smiled once in a while. He finds himself smiling almost as wide when Angel aims one at him—a smile that comes his was by accident, Dean's sure.

The pathway/road is dark, and Dean wonders if the pole they pass is a non-functioning street light, but there's no globe at the top, only a little black box…he passes it and looks up, gets the impression of a flash of blue before it's gone. _What the fuck…_ There was something about that flash that sent a shiver down his spine, but before can really dissect the feeling, he's distracted by the dogs and the kid colliding and ending up in a heap on the road, and that requires mocking….

Eventually the road peters out into nothing, barely a dirt track, and the friendly dogs turn back, and Angel watches them go back regretfully. Dean's sorry for a second that he's a poor substitute for the dogs. Angel watches them until they're smudges in the distance, shrugs and sighs before trudging on. All the playfulness that Dean wouldn't have been able to imagine the boy possessing if he hadn't seen it, was gone.

 

That night, they walk until they can't take another step and drop down to sleep without making a fire, without touching anything but their water. They roll their jackets up for a pillow, and Angel wraps himself around the burlap bag that holds their supplies—he falls asleep without a word. Dean takes a little longer to sleep. There's a feeling in him, a feeling that something bad was coming for him, sneaking up on him on little cat's feet and smiling, smiling.

~o0o~ 

Morning had come all too quickly, as far as Dean was concerned—any morning without coffee is too damn early--but at least it's going to be a good day for walking. It's cool, and a little overcast, so they're not walking into the sun or drowning in their own sweat. They'd slowed down a bit on the hiking, and now they're strolling through an allee, fruit trees trained to grow into an archway. The house the walk had been created for was long gone, not even rotted timbers to show where it had been. The trees are still healthy enough to bear fruit, at the moment they were in full bloom and the smell of the flowers was sweet and everywhere. Between that and the soft, steady, drone of bees, Dean feels a bone deep kind of relaxation, a little like he's dreaming while he's walking. The cool green light the thick growth of leaves let in made it feel even more dream-like, and for once, Angel's quiet just because he was being quiet. It's good, and they walk along like this for a long time. Well past afternoon, they take a break, share out a canteen. They talk now, Angel telling Dean what he knows about the floating cities, the traveling market place he's sure is going to help them.   
"We can keep heading in this direction, past the mines," Angel says, "and it'll lead up to the head of the grasslands. Lucky for you, the City should be appearing soon, it's the season. They'll pass the Out Towns, and set up for a few weeks before heading on."

Dean asks how a town moves on—just what the hell was a floating city anyway--and Angel describes something like a cross between a bazaar and a caravan—"Oh, okay," Dean nods. "Like nomads. They move around the desert too. I like that idea. I never cared for staying in one place too long. Never could imagine how anyone would want to squat one place forever…hunh."

"We'll see if they'll take us on. Then we can travel with them to Chronopolis. Safer that way, and maybe make some money, too."

He stops and rummages in the bag, pulls out another bar and breaks it in half. Dean takes the bar and takes a bite—or saws off a piece with his teeth anyway. Kid was right—it tastes like ass. He chews as he walks along and thinks about what the kid said about making money…he'd seemed pretty confident he could…Dean looks him up and down and knows there's one way any kid can make easy money—he'd pulled that himself at Angel's age—older. Can't say he likes the idea, not at all…"Doing what?" Dean asks, narrows his eyes at Angel and the little brat grins like he knows where Dean's mind has gone.

"They always need people to dig outhouses and wells, unskilled labor always looked for. You and your muscles will keep us fed."

"And what are you going to be doing while I'm working?"

"Telling everyone I'm your kept man."

"Asshole," Dean snorts but laughs when Angel grins. "Bitch," Dean says.

Angel laughs out loud and kicks Dean behind the knee, runs when Dean's knee folds and he curses at Angel, promising to rearrange his face. Angel's laughter spirals up past that braying howl into a high pitched kind of yelp that reminds Dean of Sam, and he has to admit to himself that the kid is growing on him…good company, if Dean doesn't kill him first. "Run, you little bitch," he shouts,"—I'm gonna kill you!"

"Jerk," Angel yells back, laughter obvious in his voice, but that one word makes Dean seize up, he's frozen in the middle of the road, seeing something not there.

Where he is in his mind hurts, his whole body seizes up and aches down to the soles of his feet, with missing Sam so much…Sam's like a roaring empty hole right in the middle of him, and he swears he hears Cas screaming for him to find Sam and god, he wants to, he wants to desperately but part of him is afraid—his mind floods with _love torture bleed cry ache Sam want hatelove_

He wakes up with Angel's hands on his forearms, Angel's yelling his name and shaking him but it's not his name, not really—ROACHROACHYOUSHITROACH—"De! Hey, De, bru, come back here, come back here with me…fuck, he's doing it again, falling apart again—hey old timer, wakey, wakey—" he curses and stumbles back, hits the ground when Dean rips his arms out of Angel's grip. He's back in the world but for a slippery few seconds he was somewhere antiseptic and stainless steel that stank of old blood and alcohol….

"Shit--fuck you, asshole lokar, you broke my ass," Angel groans and kicks out at Dean when he tries to lift him from the ground. "Leave off, you crazy sonofa bitch.

"Damn it Angel, I'm sorry dude, really. Fuck. I don’t know what made me go off like that…"

Angel looks at him warily but takes his hand. Dean pats him down and the kid blushes bright red and kind of twists in Dean's hands. Dean grabs his chin as gently as he can and turns Angel's face to his. "Look, dude," he says, voice soft, doing his best not to freak Angel out. "Do me a favor, call me by my name, okay? Not what you guys have been calling me—shut up," he snaps at the beginning of a twinkle in Angel's eye. "It is Dean."

"Sure it is", Angel says, his hand coming up to cup Dean's for a second, before he drops it away like it's on fire. He looks at Dean, hard. "It is, isn't it? You're…but you're not him. You can't be him."

Dean looks away. "I need to get into that city, Angel. I have to see Sam. Or Brother Prince, or the Boy King, or whatever the fuck they're calling him. I have to fix him."

"Good luck on that. You really think he's going to let you walk in and, what, scold him? He's going to rip you into shreds-no matter who you think you are. And even if you was—that guy—there was a bounty put on his head—dead or alive."

Dean swallows against the taste of zinc in his mouth; the unpleasant way his mouth waters…"I think he already ripped me to shreds." He rubs his arms, unaware he slips his hand around his neck and rubs and rubs….

Angel grabs his hand and holds it in his own. "Dean," he murmurs, gentle and quietly rubbing, "Dean…"

Dean blinks, then grins ruefully. "Something you had to do a lot for me? Eh. Never mind. Where we stopping tonight?"

"When we get outside the mines, we can stop and sleep, eat…after that, we have to be careful."

"Great. Just please god, tell me there'll be real food soon."

"There'll be real food soon--oh wait—did you want me to tell the truth?"

"Fucking hate you, dude." Dean stalks off to the sound of Angel laughing in the background.


	12. PART THREE: The Floating City

_"Get up, you crazy ass mother fucker. It’s coming."_

  


1

  
They make their way into the hills, where the mines are. Angel claims it'll only be a few days of hiking but drinking brackish water and living off the greasy, gritty, proto-energy bars is making Dean want to straight up commit murder.

Sooner than he expects, they come up on a mining camp. From what he can see, it pretty much looks like the place they'd just come from—like the set of an old movie. Dean sweeps the area, noting that it looks a tight community, thriving. It's set up in a circle, and Dean's willing to bet that the whole camp's a Solomon's Seal. There are cabins, what's probably a meeting hall, and judging by the sound--a school. It doesn't look like a bunch of humans hanging on by the skin of their teeth—this place is healthy and growing and it might be because it's sitting on enough iron that it's freely available to loop all over the stockade fence that surrounds the camp.

Angel leads him up to the fence, twice Dean's height, and they wait by a gate. Doesn’t take a second or two before a man on horseback rides up, looking mildly curious. These are people who consider themselves to be damn safe, Dean thinks, and they probably are, considering the amount of iron around them.

Angel waves and takes a few steps forward. The man nods, makes a show of laying his hands on the shotgun across his lap, bites down on the cigarette pressed between his lips. He sucks in, blows a ring out and gives them both an x-ray quality up and down. "Christe, gents, out and about?" he says, and watches them carefully.

Angel waves again. "Christe, bru, nomine Dei. Tryin' to catch up with the Floaters."

Dean copies Angel, being sure to say "Christe," the exact way the kid does, keeping his eyes wide and locked on the stranger's. The man on horseback waves his shotgun and holsters it, and then turns a curious eye on the two of them, like now that he's established they're not demons he can take the time to be sociable.

"Name's Walt. Well, come on in, you ate yet?

"I'm Angel, this guy here's Dean. And no sir, but we sure would like to."

"Lucky you, we're about to have dinner now. So. You ones wanting to catch up with the Floaters?"

Angel nods, and Dean does too after a moment. Walt dismounts and bangs on the gate, and the big doors open wide. He jerks his chin forward, and Angel hurries to catch up. Sure enough, the kid has his hands all over the horse, talking a mile a minute to the damn thing, and the horse seems fine with it. Walt looks over his shoulder at Dean with a little smirk on his face and Dean has the feeling his expression was altogether too fond.

~o0o~ 

The mining camp's a lot like what Dean's seen on movies, even more of sort of a western air than the Out Towns. The Out Towns had technology that if it wasn't the same as what he'd been used to, was pretty close. This encampment had none of that. There are more horses in town, and none of those boxes on pole tops or screens hanging on the walls…and there are kids, lots of kids running all over the place and none of them looked too thin or kind of grimy or were too quiet or too loud. Not a single one of them have that sad, pinched look around the eyes that Sam used to have when he was a kid--like Angel's do.

They have a pretty darn good dinner, and to pay the town back, Angel hands out a few leather thongs that carry worked iron designs, pentagrams, and sigils designed for protection, pretty common designs but even Dean can tell the work is exceptional. Wearing iron was common; a lot of the people in the camp wore pendants made of crossed iron horse nails, wrapped in red thread or with blue or green beads wired to them. Dean remembers his dad wearing a charm like that; he wore one for a long, long time. There'd been a similar thing hanging from the impala's rear view when he was a kid. The miners were pleased with the pendants though—Dean figures they didn't have the means or the craft to work designs as intricate or as delicate as the Out Town pendants.

They stock up on dried meats and fruit that the miners offer them for more of the pendants, and to sweeten the pot, Dean teaches them a few rare but pretty basic exorcisms that Sam had unearthed in those last days, fast and dirty ones, nothing like the elegant exorcisms Sam used to chant when the beasts were tied down with rope and seal. Still, quick and grimy's better than nothing and good enough to hold a demon at bay until silver or iron shot came into play—Dean makes sure they understand that's the extent of their power, but the miners seem grateful enough anyway.

Come full dark and after the bonfire in the center square has almost died down completely, Angel leads him to a small one room cabin at the rear of the camp. "This is where they put up strangers for the night. They get a bit of traffic when the Cities start to come into the grass land," Angel explains and Dean gets how visitors would be welcome in a walled-in community like this.

When they step over the threshold, Dean's instinct is to look down. He heaves a small contented sigh. There's iron inlaid in the cabin floor, it runs along the perimeter of the place, nice work. He'd bet there was salt washed over the floor and laid in the sills too. He looks upward on a hunch and yeah, just like Bobby's, there's a pentagram painted on the ceiling. He smiles—just like home, though the smile dims a bit when he sees only one bed. Not a narrow bed but still…he glances at the floor.

Angel snorts. "You can sleep on the floor if you want. Me, I'm in the bed." He strips down and hops in the bed like they've been doing it forever. Dean stares, shrugs and strips down too. Angel's turned toward the wall, presenting his back to Dean.

Dean stops, hands on his hips, just…looking at a sight familiar…and not. Angel's back is long, lean, with shoulder blades that press against his thin skin like they want to break through, and the slight curve he's bowed himself into shows off every knob of his spine. It's sweet, and it's sad, Dean thinks. At his age, muscle should be covering his knobby bones, but he's this slender wand of a thing, skinnier even than Sam was at this age. Too much running, too much worrying and not enough food. Not enough comfort. Shit, it's no wonder Angel's such a little bitch—he's got to protect himself in some way, and attitude seems to be all he has. Dean decides he can't wait for some fabulous market place, some traveling WalMart, to get a gun. He needs to be armed, the sooner the better, and it's a sure bet someone here'd be willing to trade a gun for…more pendants, or knowledge. Decides as soon as he gets his hands on a gun, he's going to give the kid lessons. It was a great way to build self-confidence. Worked like a charm for him…didn't do a fucking thing for Sammy. Well, not until Dean had figured out a system of reward that Sam took to. The memory pulls a little smile out of him, a curl of heat deep inside…he looks at Angel: thin, breakable, fragile, Angel….

The world slips a little sideways and suddenly he's seeing Sam—but a Sam that was taking him apart and accusing him of rape, of taking Sam's trust and destroying it, setting fire to his soul. This Sam doesn't cup his cheek and smile, this Sam's cutting him into ragged cubes and feeding him his own flesh—

 _Damn it._ Dean snaps back to _now,_ back in the little wooden shack, his sides heaving, cold, greasy, sweat blooming all over him, dripping down his chin…"mother fucker…."

He forces his breathing into a normal rhythm, then climbs into the bed. The sheets are surprisingly soft, and the blankets a soft weight too—comforting. He blinks his eyes, wondering if sleep will come when suddenly Angel sighs and shifts backwards, ends up plastered to Dean's front, and his heat is so intense, so comforting, that Dean's drifting away before he even knows it, not really aware that his arm comes up and circles Angel's bony chest.

~o0o~ 

There are dreams about Sam but they're all good, innocent dreams…he dreams about Sam and him fishing in a river using bits of balled up bread for bait. They don't catch anything--they never did. Sam sits on the bank, and makes up stories, hands waving and eyebrows dancing, stories that have Dean so fascinated he begs him for one after the other. In the dream, just as it happened in real life, Sam beams with pride and keeps spinning tales. In the dream, Sam finishes his tale with, 'You're like the best big brother ever, Dean,' and Dean answers him, 'You're so freakin' smart, Sam. Wish I was, too--' and Sam says, eyes big and dark, 'You are, Dean, you really are, s'why I love you so much….'

Dean smiles in his sleep...but then, his dream does that little sideways shift and suddenly something comes out of the sun. Dean freezes, his mouth won't work, he wants to tell Sam to run, whatever it is, is bad for him, really bad. He manages to turn his head towards his brother and the little boy is gone, in his place is Sam. Grown Sam, man Sam, and he's burning with rage. Hatred pours off him in waves, and he reaches out for Dean.

 _'I'm going to find you and when I do…' his hand skirts Dean's shoulder and it's like the bone explodes inside it, like his blood is boiling and the skin splits and rolls off and bits of bone fly out of the cooking meat…'I'll make you feel like this all the time. Remember?'_

 _And he does, it comes back in waves, rolling over him, taking him to bits. Reducing him to nothing and when the wave rolls back, Dean is gone and there's only roach, Master's roach. The thing from out of the sun makes Sam go away, takes roach and pulls him close and whispers something. It takes a moment before roach hears it, eventually Roach feels warm hands put his shoulder back together, and hears a voice tell him, 'you lived through this. You'll live though it and bring your brother back. Correct my terrible mistake.'_

 _'I'm alone,' Roach cries out and Castiel says 'no, you're never alone,' and Dean snorts. 'What, I gotta angel on my shoulder?' and Cas smiles, wraps his arms around Dean and lays his head on his shoulder, presses warm dry lips to the smooth flesh and says, 'yes.'_

~o0o~ 

Dean wakes up with a shout, finds Angel's already got his hands on him, shaking him. For a couple of screwy seconds, Dean thinks he's in South Dakota, under the eaves of Bobby's house, and Sam's trying to wake him from a nightmare of burning.

"You okay? You awake now?" A soft hand cups his cheek, so big it wraps him from temple to neck. Dean leans into it for a precious second; he lets everything go and just leans into it.

"Okay? Okay now, bru?" The hand sweeps over his forehead, rubbing right down to the back of his neck, digging up under his hair and rubbing out the tense knots of muscle at the base of his skull.

Dean tries to lift his head from Angel's shoulder, but if feels too good—he gives it up and sighs. "God. How do you know how to do that?"

Angel laughs. "Experience, bru."

Dean nods, sighs. "Yeah. But…only my dad and my brother knew to do that. Man, it puts me right out, man. S'nice. You do it good…" He heaves another sigh, and tries to work up the strength to move.

Angel works his knuckles over the back of Dean's neck again, and says, "I don't mind doing it…besides, gotta get my sleep too. Can't have you wakin' me up and shit."

Dean smiles against Angel's shoulder, can feel the heat of a blush work its way over his skin. Someone's got a crush, he thinks. It's kind of cute, but Dean reminds himself to be sure not to add fuel to the flames. Falls asleep and in his sleep, totally violates his vow…Angel's wrapped up in his arms, with Dean's mouth soft and wet on the back of his neck, Dean's knee between his…Dean's contented sigh drifting in the air.


	13. The Floating City (part b)

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/roxymissrose/pic/000exgfq/)

They'd left early the next morning but not before the miner's wives had fed them and made a terrible fuss over Angel—they were carrying a shit ton of food, more than what they'd traded for—plus Dean managed to get a hand-made gun, weirdly similar to the Colt Paterson the monster killer had been made from.

The gun's got a good weight and feel in his hand; he flips it a few times before letting it swing around, the grip lands with a definite smack in his palm. Solid. It's not anything like the ivory handled semi-automatic he loved, but it's a good gun. Makes him feel…dressed again.

Angel tells him he's going to scout ahead a bit, look for a place to settle in and wait for this floating city-marketplace thing he'd told Dean about to make an appearance. Dean's fine with it—there's nothing out here, nothing for miles and miles but the gentle rise and fall of grassy hills, spring green and gold. There's nothing above him but miles of flat sky tinted an intense sapphire blue, unbroken by clouds…Dean runs his fingers over the hairy seed heads of the grass he's standing in, snaps a stem from the waist-high grass and crushes the end between his teeth. A rush of memory hits him as the sharp, bright green taste floods his mouth, of a summer spent somewhere in Idaho. It was a rare time, when Dad was actually around instead of sporadically appearing in their lives, and Sam and he'd spent most of that summer running around like little wild animals—burrowing in the dirt and building forts in the grass, spending all day in the sun, all night on the porch, curled up in Dad's worn sleeping bag and sleeping together like puppies. Dean grinned. Feral children.

A rough cry breaks his reverie and he looks up, for a quick second all he sees are wide, black wings snapping open in the sky before it becomes a hawk swinging around on an updraft. Dean shudders—he's had a lifetime's worth of the sight of giant wings.

It's not long before Angel comes dashing out of the grass and Dean tightens up all over, looks behind him, but the kid is grinning with excitement and Dean can't help but grin back. He's about to ask Angel what was up, when an odd creaking noise breaks the quiet. He hears the creaking noise again, quickly followed by a booming echo so loud it makes him jerk, and Dean yells, “What the fuck is that?”

Angle looks at him, puzzled, before blushing slightly. "Oh wow," he says, and slaps his forehead, "Damn! I forgot I had to tell you about them. Let's go look!"

"Look, look at what?" he growls but Angel's already dashing off in the opposite direction and so Dean follows, and he's got to admit, Angel's excitement is rubbing off—the booming sound he'd head earlier is even louder now, the eerie creaking as well. They run up a gentle hill and Angel comes to such an abrupt stop that Dean runs into him, has to grab his shoulders to keep them both from tumbling over and sees—something amazing. What comes sailing through the ocean of grass is purely impossible. His hands tighten on Angel's shoulder, then slip around him without thought and instead of Angel fighting his grip, he sinks back against Dean, the long, lean, length of him resting on Dean's chest. Angel says, low and full of awe, "Fucking cool, right?"

Dean nods, his chin dips just a bit, and the tip of his nose grazes Angel's shorn scalp. He takes in a deep breath. "Yeah, pretty fucking cool, no doubt."

Through the green, green grass, huge dark shapes sail into view, wooden ships with masts that scrape the sky, topped with acres of canvas, bellied by the wind sweeping through the grass. They're moving slow, probably no faster than a man can run at top speed but now Dean gets what the word ‘majestic’ means.

Ships make noise, lots of it. Ropes creak and wood cracks and booms, wheels rumble and squeak and their metal cladding shrieks. Sails snap in the air--the sound was that of his bed sheets being snapped between Dad and Mom's hands, them laughing, him clapping his hands—tears fill his eyes because shit, the ships are amazing, fantastic, it's pretty fucking glorious and make his chest tight with the wonder of it.

Behind the ships are teams of wagons and smaller vans, that look more like what Dean had been expecting, brightly colored and decorated little houses on wheels. Sprinkled through the crowd are men and women on horseback and just from the way they're moving, Dean can tell they're guards. Good to know.

2

  
They follow behind the Floating City. Angel says when the caravan and ships settle, they'll catch up—a couple of days should be all it takes and then, they can see about getting attached to one of the crews—the city always hires on workers wherever it stops.

Dean nods. He'd done some work as a roustabout one summer, him and Sam; it can't be too very different.

The first night after seeing the ship, they camp, and keep the fire low, huddle close for warmth. Dean sips some of the powdered coffee Angel made and wishes that Sam were with them, drinking one of those weird coffee abominations he liked. He took in a deep breath, stabbed the fire with a thin branch and started, "Once, me and my brother, we're in this diner right?" Angel raises an eyebrow but keeps silent. "--and he's bitching and complaining about me," Dean goes on, "using my fingers to eat with, right? Now let me ask you—what's wrong with eating a sausage with your fingers, hunh?" Angel shrugs like yeah, nothing's wrong with that.

"Yeah, so he's all bitch, bitch, bitch, and takes his knife and fork to cut up a goddamn sausage patty, the freak—and shoots it across the room. Thing was dry and hard as a hockey puck. Shoulda seen his face when it landed like, two tables down…" Dean's laughing damn hard, as hard as he had that day…it was one hell of a look. No one could top Sam for that.

Angel laughs too, and the more Dean laughs the harder he laughs until they're leaning against each other, wheezing and wet-eyed.

When Dean can catch his breath, he says, "Hey. Thanks."

Angel nods—and leans over, presses his mouth against Dean's. They both inhale—shocked, and confused. Angel squeaks, "Don't hit me—"

Dean leans back, licking his lips and he admits, it wouldn't be hard, to let the kid keep going, to see where kissing leads. He's lonely, he's horny, and Angel, fucking kid…he's got a mouth like silk…more than that, Dean likes him. Likes him a lot but…Sam's out there, somewhere. Maybe he doesn't care anymore—more than likely, Sam _doesn't_ give a flying fuck about his pretty much worthless brother. Yeah, well, fuck that, doesn't matter if Sam cares or not. All that matters is that he find Sam and help him, whatever way that's called for. He can't pull Angel farther into it their shit than he already has. He hasn't forgotten how Sam is about his toys--Dean blinks.

Wow. Hell of a fucked up thought, he tells himself. He's suddenly aware of Angel pulling away from him, and carefully pulls him back. "No hitting, dude, promise. I'm not mad, in fact, I'm flattered, it's just…."

"Yeah, got it," Angel mutters, eyes on his boot toes. "M'sorry. I'm stupid."

"No! You're not. I wish…I just…can't, okay?"

Angel huffs and doesn't speak again. It's not too long after, he's snoring. Dean lays back, pulls Angel under his arm and hopes to fall asleep himself.

~o0o~ 

They catch up to the City late in the afternoon of the third day, the ships at rest, their crew striking the sails. Dean notes that the guards he'd noticed traveling with the caravans were more than that—they were hunters, and more open about it than the attitudes of the folks in the Out Town would suggest. They're painted, and tattooed and clanking with iron and silver, ivory and jade. And the eyes—there was no mistaking that intense watchfulness verging on paranoia in the eyes. Some of the riders look like they've turned the corner into full-blown nuts, but above that he sees that all of them report to one guy, a stocky, dark-skinned, bald guy on a thick boned horse. The guy waves them over when he catches sight of them.

"Deivoluntaz, brothers. Christe." He squints at them, studying their reaction—running his eyes over the gun tucked in Dean's belt before asking, "Here for work?" The guy's almost as tall as Dean, thicker across the shoulders, shaved bald and tattooed, skin puckered and dimpled with scars.

"Christe," Angel replies. "That we are. Me and my friend here. I'm Angel, he's De."

Dean holds his hand out, "Christe," he says and smiles when the guy squeezes his hand a lot harder than he has to—gives it right back and gets a grin edging on a smirk in return.

"I'm Harold. I'm the Hunter in charge here." He tosses his chin in the general direction of behind him, clanking with the amount of metal he's got stuck in his person. "It's quiet in these parts; guess you picked up on that. Gotta get my girl to fix you up and then you can head on in. Big fat guy about twenty feet tall who you wanna talk to. Horse, that's his name. Ya'll show him your wrists when you get to him."

"My wrist?" Dean says and a beautiful young girl, toffee-colored skin catching his eye, comes sliding up next to him. She tosses back wild black curls with a smirk, and for a crazy second Dean thinks it's Cassie. But no, she's too young—too happy--

Considering the state of the world, he expects the girl to be a psychic, but it appears she's a witch. He covers his discomfort because there's a look in those brown eyes that puts him even more in mind of Cassie—she's no one to be trifled with, this one. She reaches into the painted canvas bag hanging off her shoulder and takes out a small covered pot and a paintbrush. "Roll up your sleeves, guys," she says and takes the cover off the pot, spits into it and stirs it up with the brush. Dean winces just a bit—the paint is thick and warm and slightly tacky against his skin. It's a dark red, almost paste, looks like henna. The brush is short, thick-bristled and pretty uncomfortable as she works the design onto his wrist—it's like getting painted with a stick. She sketches a design that he kind of recognizes--some odd version of a lock-out sigil, definitely's got some extra added something. He can't tell what kind of extra—Sammy'd probably know. He raises an eyebrow at her, considers. Doesn’t feel like it's a wrong thing, so…"Thanks."

"Um-hum." When she does the same to Angel, the kid grimaces at the feel and says, "ew," waving his wrist around until it dries. Dean laughs—he's pretty sure Angel is more annoyed by the girl's smile than her spit.

"Don't touch," she snaps when Dean pokes it. "Let it flake off." Her voice is sharp—commanding; not at all like the smile she gives him. It's a smile that promises delicious things and builds a little warmth in his gut—nice. She nods at the hunter, repacks her tools and walks off; casting Dean a look that underscores the promise of heat she'd given him.

Angel glares at her and at him, and it kind of puts a damper on the little thing maybe building here…whatever. Kid's gonna have to get used to it—Dean likes a long pair of legs and a killer smile, always has.

Harold saunters over. "That—" he points at the henna tattoo—"will burn right through you like a hot slug through butter if you try foul magic, or truck with demons. We're safe here more or less and we aim to stay that way. Nothing says fuck off to a demon like one of these marks, or one of their pet humans' head stuffed with salt, an iron nail or two through the brain pan and the whole mess stuck on a stake, where they can see 'em. You know what I mean?"

"I believe I do," says Dean. "And as far as demons go, can't see nothing wrong with your method of handling of them."

"Good," Harold says. "Let me send you on to Horse—he needs good men…um. Your Boy, can he cook?" He looks over Angel's narrow chest and long gangly limbs, body still waiting for the muscle his frame promises—

Angel scowls at him, his brows screw up and his mouth drops open--Dean can already hear it—Sammy going at full blast against their dad. Been there, got the t-shirt, set it on fire and buried it. "Angel!" he barks and Angel gulps, whips his head towards Dean.

"But, but—he said—"

"Asked if you can cook, is all. You wanna dig ditches in the sun all day or cook?" Dean smiles when Angel's eyes soften…he's a little surprised when Angel just gives in to him.

"Okay then. I'll see you later," Dean says and follows one of the hunters out of the little circle they'd been standing in. The smile Angel gives Dean is a little too much like the witch's for Dean's complete comfort.

Harold snorts. "Firecracker, your Boy. Better keep him close. Lots of people out here'd wanna snap up a treat like that."

Down an alleyway sits a cobbled together mess of vans and tents, a banner stretching across one wall is printed with the legend "riggers". Dean watches the traffic in and out of the odd assortment of tents and nods. It might not have the look of anything he's ever seen before, but the feels the same. This has got to be the offices they hire temp workers out of.

Harold crosses his arms over the pommel of his saddle and gives Dean a sharp, assessing look. "Well, boy, was gonna give ya the spiel 'bout not all the monsters bein' black-eyed, watch yer back--but I c'n see that you had a good dose a' that lesson. Good luck, son. I'll see ya around, no doubt."

Dean watches him ride off, and wonders just what it was the hunter had seen in his eyes.  


3

  
It turns out, Angel's good with people. He's way better than Dean and in fact is as good as Sammy was, Dean discovers. He gets things done in ways Dean never could. Angel negotiates, cajoles, flirts…he convinces people how much it would benefit them to help the two of them, better, he makes the marks think it was their idea to help them all along. He never really lies, and never really tells the truth. Dean admires that about him. Comes to see more and more that the 'kid' is hardly that—he's smart, competent, and grown way beyond his years. He's pretty much Winchester material, Dean decides.

As for life in the caravan, or the Floating City, what the fuck ever they called themselves--well, he likes it pretty much. The work's hard, but it keeps his mind off shit, and he's never shirked hard work. He spends his days doing something he knows well. Digging: holes for outhouses, drainage ditches, for water.

Looking for water with the dowsers the City keeps on retainer is interesting—conflicting. He learned everything he knows about the supernatural from John Winchester and John Winchester pretty much believed that anything not purely human was evil and needed to be destroyed—except Missouri, who for some reason got a pass—

So he's never sure what to think of the dowsers. At first they make his skin crawl, make his fingers twitchy with the need to be curling around a trigger or a knife, but after a while he sees how much worth they have for the City, how really valuable they are. He's not an idiot—he treats them with respect and in turn, they treat him like a ditch digger. Fair enough.

This day, he's been helping set up corrals for the animals that the travelers bring along with them—mostly horses and oxen, some goats, some pigs. The day before he'd been part of a crew that secured the wagons and turned them into shops and homes. The shops were springing up like weeds—clothing, pottery, herbs and spices, furs and material and technology. It's a weird mix of medieval and modern. He watches a program on a palm size TV about just how wonderful Brother Prince is, how generous. The Boy King, Our Brother, has a hawk on his arm, a big black thing wearing a hood…Dean sprints away, vomits in a garbage can in an alley between the shops. There's a poster glued to the wooden wall above the can…something about vigilance and freedom.


	14. The Floating City part c

It's a digging day, and Dean's sweat-wet and dirty and chest deep in a hole that planned to be an outhouse, when Horse comes up and pops him in the back of the head. "Someone wants to talk to you, someone important," he says.

"Fuck, you asshole," Dean grouses, rubbing the hot spot on the back of his head. "Who's looking for me—'s it Angel?"

"No! You'll see." Horse reaches down, grabs Dean by the wrist and practically lifts him out of the hole like he weighs nothing, then points him towards a cobalt blue tent painted with gold suns and moons. Dean's seen the tent before, figured it was a fortune teller's tent, and avoided it. Looking at it now, he sees that the thing has tripled in size since the last time he's paid it any attention. He raises an eyebrow and makes a mental note to ask Angel what that's all about. Angel knows everything, because people tell the little shit everything. It kills him the way people react to the little fuck like he's a fucking baby cat or something. Only Dean knows there's a mean old rattler under that fluffy exterior. He smiles, no idea how much pride is in that grin….

Halfway to the big ass tent, he's stopped by a quartet of hunters, who check his wrist and the rest of him, seem pretty buzzed by the fact he's got an anti-possession tattoo on his chest. They walk him to the tent and lead him to a room within it.

His boots thunk against a wooden floor underfoot. That's different, he thinks, as are the posts holding up the tent's ceiling—they're kind of unusual. He's jammed a lot of posts in place lately, but none like these—they're carved and stained, parts sheathed in worked silver and what looks like gold—they look a little like Egyptian columns. Thick, tasseled ropes hang here and there, looking more decorative than practical. Lamps hang from the posts, throwing light onto the wide couch taking up quite a bit of the room. Fur rugs and silk coverlets are draped across its wide surface….

Dean can't take his eyes off of it—his eyebrows rising, he whistles--low and impressed, if in a negative way. It reminds him of a couple of days he'd spent snowed-in in Denver with no cable and his only entertainment a book left under the bed, some romance novel. Yeah, the tent looked like whoever lived here'd read the same damn book and _really_ liked it.

He's left alone in the center of the tent, near a stand that holds a bowl and a pitcher, both full of water. The occasional lick of a breeze ruffles the hair on the back of his neck--he looks up to see a wide-bladed fan, sweeping the air around the room. He's surprised to see that despite the oil lamps, it's an electric fan—somewhere there's a generator. "Hunh. Weird…" He'll never get used to the weird mix of technologies.

There's a towel folded over the rim of the bowl, and a little cake of soap. The water in the bowl is faintly steaming. Whoever wants to see him must also want him clean. The whole mysterious bullshit thing is working on his nerves. This better not be some spell-casting bitch's little theater going on here, because he's more than ready to kick some ass—past due. Right now, he could be sitting somewhere with Angel and a cold—semi-cold—beer and fucking relaxing, damn it.

The lamps waver in the breeze of the fan blades, the dark corners twist and jump. With each flutter of the shadows, a creeping feeling of despair tightens his chest. The play of light is uncomfortably familiar and it triggers thoughts and emotions he'd begun to think had faded into ordinary nightmares. This though…he blinks his eyes to flickering flashbacks of Hell and…and glimpses of some horrible, not quite-remembered _more._

"Fuck this…" He washes like his life depends on it, trying to distract himself from his circling thoughts, from his pounding heart. It works after a bit—the warm water smells like roses and the cloth is soft against his reddened, tingling, skin.

When he's finished, he carefully pours a glass of mint-scented water, swishes it thoroughly in his mouth and drinks it down—he knows the water's meant to clean his mouth, make his breath more pleasing, he has to please…Dean blinks rapidly, finally recognizes the too tight sensation in his throat and chest as intense, mind-numbing, fear. _Pleasing? What the fucking fuck—?_

Before he can rip into that thought and dissect it, the fans waft a scent through the air that makes his hair stand on end and his dick give an interested thump. He turns and standing in the door way is one unbelievably hot woman. She's setting off alarms all through his brain but his body is straining towards her before he can even think.

"So, you’re D…something. You came in with an Out Towner, but you're not from the Out Towns. Or the mines, or Chrono, and definitely not Dys, not with that thing on your chest."

Dean takes a couple of deep breaths, settles himself. Damn, he thinks. She's overpowering, so much so that he'd almost suspect that she's a siren or a succubus…but she's human. She's got sliver all over her, in her ears, her nose, she's wearing multiple thin chains and bracelets, iron, silver, jade…not supernatural, just really unbelievably fucking hot. Maybe a little craft going on there too, but nothing harmful, he decides.

"I'm from somewhere else. Not sure how I got here, don’t care. Do you care? Looks like you're running the show here--you've got nothing to fear from me."

"Well, maybe not in the way you’re thinking. I don't know if my heart's safe," she says and splays her hand over her chest.

Dean presses his thumb against his mouth to hide a grin…he kinda likes it when a woman uses cheesy pickup lines on him, he likes a chick with a sense of humor. She smirks, and lays herself out on the couch, wide enough for two people--and all their friends. High enough that she had to step onto it from a footstool or something. Sitting up, she'd be at a real interesting height…a flash of Sam sitting on the end of the couch, smirking and blushing, whips through his mind. He squashes that thought ruthlessly.

"At this point," she says, "you're wondering who I am—or not." The curtains behind her billow suddenly, and Dean's attention jerks to them.

"I'm developing theories," he says, and the curtain jerks again. "Gotta say, from all the restrained activity back behind the curtains there, I'm probably about to plunge in over my head…"

"I'm the one who runs things in these parts—as in the Queen of the Floating City?" she said with a lop-sided grin.

"Ah. Yeah, okay…" _fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._ "So, over my head…unh…your Highness?"

"Ta-daa," she says. "And I'm bored. And you've got some reason to be on this trek, according to my seers, a hell of a fascinating reason and I want to know why that is."

"Unh, yeah…your Highness, Queen, unless this isn't a voluntary thing, I gotta get back to work." He's not about to talk to anyone about why he's there—no matter how great their tits are.

"Oh, it's voluntary…" she shrugs in a way that widens his eyes. It was a pretty sight and Dean was beginning to feel like it'd been centuries since he'd been anywhere near something like that. A little corner of his mind was yelling at him, but he paid it no mind. "I want you to come see me though…after work. Maybe I can help you…you can definitely help me," she purrs.

Dean kind of grins back. Looks like he's just been signed on to gigolo duty all voluntary-like…sure. Not that it'll be much of a hardship, just—why the hell pick him? What the fuck is so interesting about him?

He's dismissed and back on his way to Angel, dissecting the incident. The bitch was nuts. Dean knew, he talked a decent line of bullshit and there was always some loser who was going to fall for it, but he had no illusions about himself. He'd pulled one--maybe two--great, smart, too good for him chicks in his whole life…plus Sam. Brilliant, hot, sexy, all of them, and all of them with a big blind spot where Dean Winchester was concerned. Cassie came to her senses, Lisa never got a chance to know him well enough to dump him, and Sam…Dean bit his lip. Maybe the thing that was wrong about Sam, was Sam's big brother.

~o0o~ 

"Dean! Fuck, what a day. Domini, I thought I was going to put a knife through that fuck's head today. Head chef," he explains at Dean's quirked eyebrow. "Spent all day over the spit and _hot_!—those cook tents are hot. Hey, did I thank you again for saving me from broiling in the sun, thanks a fucking lot, it's so much better drowning in my own sweat."

He's carrying a bulging bag that he drops on a scrounged table pushed against one side of the tent. Jabbers away as he pulls wrapped bread and meat out of the bag, along with some pieces of fruit that he lays on a plate and proceeds to cut soft spots out of. He talks on a bit more before he finally realizes that Dean hasn't said a word, hasn't snagged anything from the table, and wasn't telling him to shut up. He puts down the knife, fixes Dean with his green-brown stare. "What?"

"Ah…Angel, dude…" Dean rubs the back of his neck. "How much longer we gotta stay here? I mean, when's that petition thing starting up? I'd kinda like to leave…soon, y'know…."

When Angel answers him, his voice is heavy with patience, sounds like he's just this side of leading off with _'You idiot'._ "Dean. Give a week, maybe more, the petitioners' caravan will be heading to Chronopolis. From there, if we make it through Court, we go to Dys. It's the best way to avoid slavers, demons, pirates—we talked about this. It's the best way. Safest."

"I guess." A part of him rebels against the notion of fearing demons or plain old people—but part of him is reluctant to expose Angel to anything worse than what he's already dealt with…part of him needs to protect him. It irritates the hell out of him, the way this kid has crept under his skin like—like—a damn chigger. "Whatever. What's for dinner, kitchen bitch?"   


~o0o~ 

When he sees the Queen next, it's a strange meeting. Her guard is behind her, and in front of her is a hunched little old woman, holding a tea cup in her hand. It's full of a dark liquid that doesn't look much like tea, or even coffee. She tilts the cup and the fluid thickly coats the sides like blood, or syrup. She's staring into it, so hard that even Dean feels a prick of expectation. After a long couple of breaths she says, "hunh." Looks back at the Queen. "Well, Willa, your Majesty, girl, I couldn't see a damn thing outta this boy 'cept he's come a long way to get here—and he's dangerous as fuck but you can jus' look at his ass and see that." She winks and shuffles past Dean, and in a low harsh whisper meant just for herself and Dean says, "Boy…you come on over Zonda, the Mistress of the Mysteries tent someday soon, hear? Do you one for free."

Dean shudders a bit at the innuendo in her cracked old voice, and channels Sammy's manners. "Yes ma'am, me and my friend will come on over."

"You got a friend?" she says, not sarcastic, just genuinely surprised. "Well. Wonder why I didn’t see that."

After she leaves, and they're alone, Dean asks Willa, Queen of the Floating City, "What the fuck was that about?"

"We had a suspicion, nothing major. Here." She gives him a tall, thick glass shaped like a test tube, and a zippo style lighter. "Warm it a little before you drink. You'll like it."

He hesitates, looks up into her eyes and there's something in them that makes his mouth go dry. He does as she says. He sips and gags a bit—it's truly foul. But he's swallowed worse in his life and just grimaces and finishes it off.

They sit on her couch, talking a bit and then she asks him, "Why are you here, rosebud, and tell me the truth."

Dean thinks it sounds like a wonderful idea, and proceeds to tell her everything he knows, about him, about Sam. About Cas. It's a wild looping tale and he's pretty sure he's leaving out bits and maybe adding bits, getting them confused. She leans forward, eyebrows climbing her forehead the more he speaks. When he finishes, she sits back and stares at him, so long that he tries to give her more, tells her about him and Sam as kids, and how—she stops him with a hand over his mouth. "Yeah, alright now. That's good, D, that's fine…so somehow or another, you were in the thick of something bad. Eh. Demons, angels, I try to keep out of stuff like that, but…" She twists her head to get a good look at him, and Dean smiles up at her. "You know, they say Hell's King will sometimes trade good things for just the right sort of tall, green-eyed boy with a mouth like yours. I wonder what he'd give for one who thinks that he's his brother?"

It's hysterically funny, what she says, and Dean can't stop laughing. Until her hot little hand slides into his pants and wraps around his dick, and then the laughing stops. Everything stops. He's not even aware he's got her wrist in his hand until he hears her voice, low and controlled, matter of fact, "D, you're hurting me. Let go."

Fuck! He snatches his hand back and she smiles, though even fucked up as he is he can see the smile stops right at her lips. "Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you go home and I'll have my boys bring you to see me tomorrow."

"Okay," he nods and his head just keeps bobbing and bobbing. "I had a great time. Can we do this again? I liked that drink—what was it? Can we put chocolate in it next time, it tastes like ass but it feels good wow, I really feel good, how about you?" he asks and this time when she smiles, her whole face is smiling…it reminds him of kids he'd sometimes run into growing up, the ones that liked to step on bugs, cut worms in half…but then she kisses his cheek and she smells so good, and she's warm and soft and everything he didn't know he was missing after years of flat, hard planes under his hands, hard muscle and knots of scar tissue…her skin is like cream, smooth under his hands…there's a tiny, soft voice deep, deep, inside his mind, crying _no, no, no…._

Dean blinks back tears, it takes too long for him to remember that he's in the tent of the Queen of the Floating City. "I—I gotta go—Angel—"

"Your Boy," she says, a slight bitter flavor to her words. "Sure, you. Go on then. We'll talk." He staggers to his feet and feels her eyes burning on the back of his neck all the way out.

~o0o~ 

One of the quartet that had led him to the Queen's tent leads him back to the Temporaries' Camp, and somehow he makes it back to his tent. Angel is sitting on one of the bags cross-legged, scarfing down a bowl of something that steams and smells good. He ignores Dean when he walks in.

"Got enough for me?" Dean asks, blinks when the floor starts dancing. "Oh man, are you doing that? Stop it if you are. Wow."

Angel sniffs, wrinkles his face at Dean and says, "Fuck you."

Dean snarls, "You really do remind me of my brother, you little shit. Now gimme." He snatches the bowl and fends Angel off with a hand planted in the middle of his face, chortling as Angel screams some really inventive and nasty things at him. Dean can't help but be impressed.

 

That night, in his sleep, Angel rolls over Dean and hooks a leg over his curls into a comma and presses his face into Dean's chest. Angel's breath puffs out in warm starts and fits against him, the kid snorts from time to time and rouses Dean from deep sleep, rubbing his nose against his chest. Dean says, "Ew, Sammy," but smiles and sinks right back down to sleep, stroking long paths up and down Angel's back as he drifts off.

He sleeps good, dreamless and wallowing in the feel of safe that night.


	15. The Floating City (part d)

4

  
Sun is up but not burning yet and he and Angel are strolling down the main drag, heading for breakfast. They buy strips of chicken cooked on wooden skewers, painted with a sauce that just stops at burning. They grin at each other and sweat, and chase each bite down with pieces of a flat savory bread, sticky with garlic and spices. In between bites, they pass a bottle of water back and forth between them. Their feet kick up little clouds of reddish dust along the dirt paths between tents and wagons, and the odd snatches of music and voices compete with the sound of birds overhead and the snap of flags in the breeze. Dean takes it all in with a smile. It's good, reminds him of the time he and Sam had played at being circus roustabouts. Of other times they'd managed to snatch a little down time between jobs, pretending normal, hanging out at local fairs.

They're just walking past a tent promising all kinds of practical items that have yet to be unpacked and stacked on shelves when Dean sees it. He chokes, almost impaling himself on the skewered chicken.

"What the fuck—why is there a fucking _harpy_ in that cage—how is it even possible--?"

Angel looks up and glares at the hag-faced thing quivering in a too small iron cage. Wrinkled, human-like breasts protrude from the feathers thick on its deformed body; stumps of wings beat against the bars and jerk away from the touch of the iron. "Harpy spit," he snaps. "Once you boil out the gunk, it's good for wounds, knits up meat like a dream." He turns his head away from it, and barely suppresses a disgusted shudder. "Um. Yeah, I keep forgetting that you don't…know this stuff."

Dean gawps at the monster in the cage. He's sliced and diced a few, but has never seen one just sitting before. To him, it looks like a hag mashed into a hawk's body and crushed down into a hunched ball of hatred. The thing's talons are clipped away; the claws on the end of twig-like arms tucked under its wings are muffled in leather mitts. It turns to Dean and hisses, little but malice in its ice-blue eyes. They've pulled its needle-teeth, left just a raw hole in a ragged face. Unbelievably, Dean feels a jolt of pity for the nasty thing.

Angel reads his face and shakes his head. "Don't be stupid, if it wasn't in that cage, it'd be trying to take our face off, or lay eggs in our guts so…" he shrugs. "Save it for something that deserves pity."

They pass another tent, and in front of it stands a tall, black-haired man. There are snakes draped over his body, slithering over his arms, across his neck. They glide past his mouth as he smiles at Dean. Dean shivers. He's pretty sure that the guy just licked the pale belly of that snake… "What's his story?" he growls and jerks his chin in the guy's direction.

Angel gnaws on the last shreds of chicken stuck to his skewer. He glances at the guy and shrugs. "Um. Besides being clearly insane—he's a soothsayer, y'know. Just a jumped up fortune teller."

"What, ya mean fake?"

"Nah—no fakes here, bru. But so what? Fortune tellers are a dime a dozen and no one's going to tell you that your life is destined to be shitty and fucked up, right? How far would you go on that?"

Dean laughs, Angel's got a point. He's a little freaked when Snake Guy pins him with a long searching look before his eyes shoot wide. He whips around and practically flings himself into his tent. That can't be good….

~o0o~ 

_She calls for him, almost every evening and he goes without question. Angel pulls farther and farther away, face like ice when Dean leaves. Can't help that. It's…it's just is the way it is. Dean stops asking about leaving. He stops asking Angel how his day went, stops looking at him, stops sharing a bedroll. Stops wondering what his skin tastes like, stops thinking about anything but her Majesty, Queen Will. After a while, he stops going back to Angel at all._

~o0o~ 

Dean's spread out on her couch, panting hard, worn out and desperately wishing he could sleep. His skin feels raw and too hot and he can't stop touching himself. He feels someone behind him, and groans. Spreads his legs and opens his arms. It's one of the hunters—George--at his back. George watches Dean writhe on the couch, and can't keep the want out of his eyes but there's disgust there, too. His mouth twists up into a sneer when he sees Dean's aware of him.

Dean doesn't like that, doesn't like the way he's getting treated lately…there's a distinct lack of respect. Dean thinks maybe he needs to do drills again. Ditch-digging's given him shoulders almost as broad as Sammy's but his other skills are getting rusty. George sneaks up on his blind side and trails fingers across his ribs and instead of getting up and clocking him like he should, Dean's dick twitches, drools, like all he is, is one big, fucking, Pavlovian response. A breathy moan he can't stop leaks out of his mouth, his knees start to lift…a tiny voice in his head is telling him this isn't him, isn't right or normal and if he stopped for a second he'd know what it was but he ignores it. Fuckin' little voice never steered him right before. Besides, he's burning, he fucking needs it, wants it…his mouth is open and something presses on his tongue, a fingernail scratches the smooth, wet, inside of his lip and he shudders right down to his curling toes.

 _"Oh. Shit."_

A voice he doesn't really recognize breathes the word into his ear and suddenly is gone. Dean hears the tinkle of bells and then he smells her. His hips jerk up, his dick slaps against his belly.

"Get out," she says to someone not him and Dean can feel now it's just her and him and it's time….

~o0o~ 

She's sitting on his legs, her hand working his dick, slow, loose…not enough to get him anywhere but crazy. "Isn't it nice here? Aren't you glad to be here?" Her voice slithers under his skin, feels like rose stems being threaded under it. She lifts onto her knees and he presses his thumb against the damp material of her panties, rubs at the little nub trapped under the silk. He presses harder and her lips pout open. He's got the bump of her clit under his thumb, rocking it until her legs spread wider and she groans. Slides a finger past the slick material and sinks into her. He smiles because now, she's the one on fire; she's the one who wants.

He sits up, pushing her down, reversing their positions. Reaches over and grabs the glass tube of ass-tasting drink she'd set on the table. Her eyes track the movement.

"You've already had a glass; you shouldn't drink more, Rosebud. Could be dangerous." But her eyes spark and glitter like what she says is a joke and he drinks until the glass is empty, slides his tongue into the tube and licks what he can out. And his blood explodes, it's boiling, and he was horny before but now, he's screamingly desperate. Her hand on him is like a flaming brand—hotter even when she sets it over the weird scar on his arm. He screams, his head filled with visions of Sam cutting that thing off over and over and over and…

"Shhh, whatever you see, it's not real—you're here with me, this is happening." She bites down hard on his nipple and he bucks and precome spills on her belly. He slides down, smearing the wet between them, pries her legs apart.

"This is happening, this is real, this," he murmurs and drags his tongue between her silky, wet, lips, a thick wet stripe up the center of her, ends at her clit and sucks it into his mouth, pulls on it like it's—like he'd want her to pull on his dick, slides his fingers inside her to feel her heat, feel how wet and smooth she is--tight.

"God. Good boy," she groans, "clever boy." He sucks, hard, and she bucks up, muscles clamp down on his fingers and he can feel her throbbing as she comes. He comes too, soaking the silk coverlet draping her couch.

 

 _He's twisted in her sheets, sliding in and out of her. It happens over and over again, without stop. All he knows is this--his body's on fire, he's screaming out an orgasm and getting hard before he's even finished coming and his mind is…not connected. There's no feeling, just want, lust, a raging need to fuck her, to get off, again and again. Every time he touches her skin, it sends jolts of electricity that jerk his dick back to full hard. There's a little skittering scrape of panic in the corners of his mind. It won’t stop. He can't stop. She leaves him rolling on the couch, grinding into the rough material and screaming into the pillow. And when she comes back to him, it starts all over again._

Days later _weeks months years…time is a myth a dream meaningless_ , he tumbles out of _nightmares_ dreams to a voice calling out, begging the Queen's attention. Someone is calling at the curtain that closes the room off, calling for Her Majesty. She shoves him off and Dean tumbles over the edge of the couch, his knees crack against the floor and he comes all over himself. He rolls to his back, moaning, reaching out for her. His vision wavers and blinks like a fever dream, everything he sees looks unreal, everything he feels hurts him, makes him want to come…when the queen speaks, it sends his heart racing, his blood pumps into his dick and he feels like he's going to explode…die of wanting it.

"Give him the blood cleaner. Then get him out of here. I need to get ready for this Petition's meeting. We need supplies, and we might have something decent to trade."

"Where should I drop him? Not the Lock-up? You want to keep him looking nice, right?"

"Looking nice?" The way she laughs sends a shiver right through Dean, chilling the fever boiling in him for a second or two before it comes roaring back. "Sure, take him back to—to--his tent, wherever he was; I'll want him back in a few days."

The man bows. ""Deivoluntaz," he says. As your majesty wishes."

"Yeah, she damn well wishes. Fucking Chronops. It's like they know I've found a new toy. Interrupting me," She pouts, and pets Dean on the head on her way out, swivels out of his desperate grasp.

"You poor fucker," the man says. "Shame what she's going to do to you. The Boy King. They say Dys is worse than Hell on earth. At least you've got a while yet—you'll go out happy." He shoves his thumb in Dean's mouth, yanking his mouth wide and holding down his tongue as Dean tries desperately to suck on his fingers, tries to grind against the man's leg. "Stop," the man mutters, "just swallow it, damn it." He tilts Dean's head back, massages his neck until the brackish fluid slides down his throat and Dean has to swallow in order not to drown. The man grinds his hand down over Dean's mouth, an impersonal and disinterested grip that still makes Dean's eyes roll back in his head, makes his dick jump and drip.

"Hope that's enough," the man says and signals the Queen's little quartet of guards to get Dean dressed and out of the tent.

"Clean him up. Take him out the private way. Make sure he's on his doorstep—in one piece. If anything happens to him before she's through with him, she'll gift all of you to Dys in his place."

Dean ends up face down in the entrance to Angel's and his tent, a little cleaner, clothed, and fairly unmolested. His mouth is swollen but not torn, his clothes a little smeared and damp but nothing that won't wash away, nothing wrong with his body that won't settle with a night's rest. His hips still move restlessly into the press of the ground against him. Angel finds him half in and out of sleep.

"De—shit. Shit, fuck, shit—c'mon, bru, get up. Let's get inside."

Dean giggles to himself. It's not so bad, not anymore. The air's stopped feeling like ground glass and now it's cool and soothing, and Sam's hands on him are warm and soft, save for the calluses that prick pleasantly against his skin. He's always loved the way that felt, Sam touching him. Big warm hands smoothing away everything but this feeling, this need. Need. "Sammy…"

"Shut up," Sam snaps, and it makes Dean sad. He didn't mean to make him mad. It's like he's always making Sammy mad nowadays. S'okay, he knows how to fix it.

Before he can make a move, water's being poured over his head. Dean jerks at the sudden chill, startled into a yelp of surprise, but settles. Sam wants it so he'll wait until Sam's done doing…whatever it is he's doing. Good smells surround him, fresh, clean smells, not like before. Some fresh, bright-smelling herb is scenting the water and Sam is washing him, looking so serious and pissed off still, so Dean does his best to help, to cooperate. When Sam stops dousing him and starts rubbing him with the towel, Dean moans, rubs himself against Sam and pushes him down, claws the towel away. "Let me, let me, Sam—"

"De—no! Stop, stop. It's not real; it's whatever she did to you--"

Dean's not hearing it, his hand is over the hard line of Sam's dick and no way Sam doesn't want this, no matter what he claims, he wants this. Dean just has to….

He crawls over Sam, holds him down and works his pants off, his shirt. He's kind of vaguely aware that Sam punches him, but it's weak and off center. Makes him snort. He still hits like a girl.

"Sammy, Sammy." Dean bites at his mouth, licks away the sting, he grips the hot, fat shaft and jerks Sam off just the way he likes, fast, tight, palms the head and squeezes his way back down—sure, he knows what Sam likes. Sam is writhing under him, gasping and crying like it's been forever instead of a night. Dean grins and reaches behind himself, working himself open—he's slick and loose, and doesn’t remember prepping himself like that but what the fuck ever—slides down Sam's fat dick and it's so fucking perfect, he comes instantly, just like that, dick jerking and splashing them both. Sam's finally into it, grips Dean's hips so hard it hurts but fuck, it's so good too. Sam fucks him like he never plans to stop and Dean just hangs on for the ride, lets Sam fuck him stupid—comes again, and then Sam arches until Dean worries about his back. His dick jerks and throbs hard inside Dean, he feels the heat and sudden slicker slide and then Sam drops down and curses, curses, tears on his face and Dean knows he did something really wrong, just not what it was.

"Don’t cry Sammy, don’t cry. I'll make it better, okay, I'll fix it, I always do. I love you."

"Yeah, yeah, De, I love you too, it's okay, just. Sleep all right? Please? Go to sleep."

Dean does what Sam says. He only wants his brother to be happy.


	16. The Floating City (part e)

[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/roxymissrose/pic/000gkr18/)

The red sand stretches out for miles in every direction he looks. Red and sand and sand and red, forever. He walks like he's walking through the Palace gardens, like he's walking across that green lawn, brushing past the rose bushes he kind of loves, if only because he thinks they're funny. They are—with their fat red heads bobbing in the breeze--his eyes narrow and he smiles. The yellow tinted wind blows past him; he feels the gritty crunch of fine grains driven against his lips, the tang of sulfur on his tongue and in his nose. Fire erupts to one side of him and screams well up and fade in the distance. The crows flying along his path land, dip their beaks to scrape against the black stones breaking out of the sand like cracked burned bones….

It's a good day.

He looks at the small screen in his hand, watches the tiny, grainy figure of his brother walking along a long dirt road edged here and there with stunted fruit trees. Some animals hunt him through the grass growing high and wild along the road, and Sam gets a little hard, thinking of them catching him, dragging him to ground. Pictures Dean wide-eyed and wide mouthed under their jaws, roses of red bursting from his lips…he adjusts himself, gives himself up to the memory he's sure this must be….

He frowns when they come into clearer view; it's a bitter dash of disappointment to see that they're just dogs, just plain, old, garden-variety, mangy mutts falling all over. Which of course they'd have to be, seeing that that plane is just…the upper world, dreary, full of meatsacks and woe and guilt and so many stupid things.

Sam growls and his entourage skitters sideways trying to get out of his line of sight. He always finds how pedestrian the upper world is hard to remember when he's in the Basement…his mind works differently here. Clearer. Sharper, devoid of excess baggage—feelings and emotions that are useless to him. _and the creeping pain in his middle, the sharp jab and burn of ice in his chest_ He huffs, disgruntled at the thoughts that dare creep in where they're not wanted. Stares at the screen again. Why the fuck is the bloodbag talking to itself? As he watches, Dean throws a stick or something for the animals, and turns and talks to something not there. _Maybe he's gone crazy. Crazier._ Sam smiles. How sweet, that. It's a clear sign that Dean needs him. Needs Sam's loving hand on him to protect him, to guide him, _shape him…_ only Sam can keep him safe. Only Sam knows what Dean needs, better than Dean knows himself. Hell leaves a print on a body, needs that the upper world could never understand.

No one loves Dean like his brother does.

Sam turns and looks back at the tall bronze gates. Grasping, bare boned branches and the thick gnarled tree trunk worked into the verdigris-streaked metal shimmer as he looks. It's time to go back inside, to talk to the damn angel again and figure out what is wrong with the sentry eyes. The images he gets of his property are few and far between and when he does get them, the images are generally staticy, grainy to the point of uselessness. He gave a brief thought to replacing all the eyes with a fresh batch. He looks up to catch the acid blue eyes blinking at him from their little black perches on the poles that line the path to the Basement door. They all slam shut when Sam looks at them and he laughs. Points an admonishing finger at the boxes and says, "You've seen Dean, haven't you? I think…you know where he is."

The little eye box closest to him swims in liquid before its lashes drop and Sam thinks this is even funnier. Cas, Cas…why does the wreck of an angel even bother?

"Majesty…do you want us to fetch it here?" His current consigliere asks him, a tall obsidian-black thing made of wings and claws and eyes and so many teeth, head bent but all those eyes on him, carefully deferential.

"No," Sam says, "I have lots of time to fetch him. Right now, I have too much to do." He turns to the thing with a small smile, sighs a sigh full of patient disappointment. "Tell me, I may be wrong, but did _you_ just refer to _my_ brother as _it?_ My Pet, my sibling, my Sacrifice…the future Consort? Did you have the audacity to refer to him as _'IT'?"_

"But you call it—sometimes you say—I didn't—of course not, I would never—say, isn't that Moloch over there by the stairs--?" The soon to be former consigliere whirls around and sprints across the sugar fine red sand but nothing can move as fast as Sam in his element. No matter where the demon runs to, Sam is there smiling and waving. It dashes every which way before it gives up, gibbering, bleating out apologies from its many mouths, screaming justifications and outright lies until Sam finally has enough. It's just not entertaining anymore, and he waves a hand, speaks a few words that has it dancing in flames across the red sand, leaving streaks of soot and smoking pieces of meat. Sam watches it with a small, satisfied smile before waving his hand again. The flame dies down and it's lying in glassy puddles of fused sand, only the irregular trembling of its flesh a sign that it's still alive.

The crows hop slowly closer.

Sam smacks his lips. He's a little on edge. Frowns down at the small screen again. There's something there, something he's not seeing, that he's not getting. He hates that feeling, of knowing whatever it is, is just on the edge of discernment, but something is keeping him from it, shielding—whatever it is. There's an itching at the inside of the back of his skull, a yawning ache in the center of him that only wading knee deep in blood and entrails helps to sooth. That's why he hates being upstairs too long. It's not the memories crowding him, it's the itchy, sticky, vibrating _lack_ of the true sense of them that makes his blood run cold and sluggish in his veins.

He shakes himself, willing the morbid thoughts away, like water shaken off a hound's pelt. He just got in a shipment of green eyes…still attached to their owners but that was a small inconvenience. If any of them were pretty enough he might keep the whole shell for a while. Castiel hates that…when they scream, he curls in on himself like a snail's eyeball. Sam laughs, a delighted peal of clear, young laughter that makes the crows explode into the air and take flight, a whirring black cloud scudding low over the red, red sand….

~o0o~ 

_Dean's sick. His stomach is rolling and rolling, he's thrown up a million times and every time he comes out of the vomit induced blur, Angel is right there, wiping his mouth, holding his head. Angel is…well, an angel. Dean feels so much gratitude for him it's ridiculous. His eyes spark with tears just thinking about it, how Angel helps him breathe just by being there. It makes him warm from the inside out, and for once he feels safe. He falls in and out of sleep, of delirium, but it's okay. Whenever Dean opens his eyes, he's there. Angel, he loves him so much his heart feels like it's going to break…Angel's smell, his voice soft and sweet in his ear, his touch like an anchor…it's centering, it’s what he needs. It's like home…._

~o0o~ 

It's been the better part of a day and he's holding water down now. He hasn't had to crawl out to the outhouse in a few hours, so—score. The last few days are a miserable blur but at least he can keep his fucking eyes open now. Angel tells him that he's got to go out for a bit, not to let anyone in, or talk to anyone—or NominiDei, fuck anyone. Dean doesn't think that's funny at all…he shudders, his dick lurches kind of painfully, and he curses the kid under his breath. Freakin' bitch ass bitch. Scrawny motherfucker thinks he's funny. Just wait, the second he can stand for longer than five minutes without wanting to hork, he's going to beat the shit right out of the annoying little motherfucker and laugh his ass off while he's doing it.

The sun's setting and it's getting cooler by the time Angel comes back. He's got a pot of soup, bread, and something like an ugly, lumpy orange that he peels and shoves at Dean. Insists stubbornly that he eat it all before sitting down himself. "So…we've got to get out of here, like, soonest. The petition thing's tanked. We've gotta figure out some way to get into Chronopolis that doesn't involve this shit heap." He divides the food between the two of them, grabs one of the biscuits and moves to the tent flap, and stands facing the street.

Dean rips into the biscuits, licks soup off the spoon, his wrist—he's so fucking hungry now he can hardly open his mouth fast enough to get food in. He swallows once or twice before saying," Angel…"

"She was never going to let you go, you know. She planned to use you up, bru."

"Succubus," Dean hisses. "God damn it, I knew something was off. Fucking thinking with my dick. Sam always said it was gonna kill me."

Angel jerks and stiffens, but before Dean can say anything else, he slumps. Turns towards Dean and shakes his head. "Nah—not a succubus, De. Just fucked-up an' crazy. People," his lip curls in disgust.

Dean sighs. Nods. As much as he hates it, the kid's right. Nothing could be more fucked up than, "People, dude." He rakes his eyes over Angel and worries. Dean knows body language, has depended on that particular strength all his life to deal with the two most difficult to live with people in the world. It's not even hard to tell something's off with Angel, the way his shoulders curl in…hopes it's not anything he did while out of his mind. He wishes he could grab that fucking bitch by her throat and... "Hey. Angel, man, you okay?"

Angel rolls his eyes, a smirk firmly pasted in place. "Why wouldn't I be? You're the one who's been trying to get rid of his insides from both ends. We need to get to work, now that you can stand up without passing out again."

"Shut up," Dean mutters, and can't help the reflexive shudder that runs through him. It'd been like suffering through the worst hangover times ten with a side of flu. "Bitch…"

"Nomportah, asshole. I picked up some refs to people on the market who might be able to lend a hand. So." He dug under his bedroll and pulled out a double handful of slugs, carefully counted them into a small leather wallet. "We start in the seer's row."

"'Kay." Dean tips the bowl up, empties it. He heaves a sigh, part regret the soup's gone, part reluctance to say what he has to. "Angel, man. I'm sorry." Angel flinches but Dean goes on. "I've been a shit lately, okay more than lately, but ever since Min stuck you with me, you've done nothing but try an' take care of me, best you can. I'm not really used to that and…and. You deserve an apology. You deserve more than that."

"Stop." Angel swallows, hard. "Dean. Do not apologize, hear me?"

"No, it's true. And you're…" Dean stops, shakes his head. "You're like a combination of my dad and my brother," he laughs weakly. "You're fuckin' unstoppable, man."

"Yeah? I'm like family, hunh? So. I'm supposed to think that's a good thing?" Angel smirks—it's weak and little shaky. "I don't know about that, bru—after all, look at you."

Dean flips him off and Angel laughs, and it sounds better, more real, like maybe they've gotten past something. Dean hopes so. He depends on Angel more than he ever thought he could depend on someone not blood. Feels like some knot tangled in his chest is finally, finally coming loose. "Yeah. Damn right it's a good thing."

Angel kind of creeps closer to Dean, sidling up longways like a dog afraid of being kicked.

"Hey, fuck that dude, get your ass over here." Dean holds his arms out and Angel's in them so fast Dean blinks. And then smiles. Angel fits comfortably right under his chin—so what if he's stooping a bit to do so. He hasn't felt anything this good in…centuries. He laughs softly, and presses his grin into Angel's hair. "Real good thing, du—bru." Angel folds around him like a blanket, warm and comfortable. Later on, he'll be trying to shove the kid off, he puts out heat and sweat in equal amounts but right now, it's what he needs—though he'd swallow his own tongue before he said it out loud.


	17. The Floating City (part f)

5

Angel insists that Dean get up and come with him to the central part of the market. Figures that Her Majesty is going to be preoccupied for a bit so it was in their interest to get ready to run now. So Angel's dragging him through the market, bitching and moaning and Dean's ready to kill him…or would if he could lift his arms higher than his hips or kick Angel in the face without toppling to the side.

Even though the sun's dropped and the sky's tinted more salmon than blue, Dean alternates between sweating and freezing. His freakin' keeper's got him wrapped up in a long sleeved robe, and God help him if he tries to roll the sleeves up some—Angel has a damn coronary, and a bitch-face that tops Sammy's easily. Dean wipes away the cold sweat dripping down his forehead with the edge of the scarf he's got wrapped around his head and most of his face. He's supposed to look like an Edger, what the Regulars and the Temporaries call the groups that trail after the caravans but aren't really a part of it. Angel's lame ass idea of disguise, like the fucking color of his eyes wouldn't give him away if anyone gave him more than a glance. Dean just goes along with it though, because Angel seems to get such a kick out of playing spies or whatever. Dean shakes his head and smirks. _Goofball._

They end up at Zonda's tent without a major yelling match and with all their extremities, so Dean insists loudly that qualifies him for sainthood. Angel jabs him in the ribs hard enough to break them, and snorts when Dean barely muffles a scream. "We're supposed to be discreet," Dean hisses, just as Zonda pokes her head out of the tent flap and catches them on her doorstep, elbowing and jostling each other like twelve-year olds.

"Discreet? You'ns sure failed at that," she huffs and after a long, cold, meant-to-be-intimidating stare, she lets them in.

She's stirring a handful of tiny bones Dean hopes are a bird's in a tarnished metal dish. She's making odd faces, little humming noises, and Angel's rolling his eyes at her and at Dean. She finally sighs, her tiny body seeming to deflate, and leans back in her chair. Holds a glass out and a scowling giant of a guy is instantly at her elbow, filling it. She draws it out--fucking theater. Dean wants to snap at her to pick up the pace, and she knows that, takes her God damn time. She sighs again and smacks her lips before saying, "Not news to you, 'm sure, but you in deadly trouble boy, few times over. That girl's never played with a full deck and she's not just playing now—if she don't get something for you, she ain't gonna let you go. End up killin' you, I expect. She's a fool." There's a shrewd and measuring look in her beady eyes. "And you don't know the Boy King wants fellas like you…"

Dean frowns when what she's said hits him like a nailed two-by-four to the head. Sam's looking for him. And he knows in his gut it's not a good thing. Dean's not about to show up on Sam's doorstep at a disadvantage. He knows what a bitch Sammy can be if he's not getting his way.

Zonda emits a discreet little burp and waves her empty glass to be refilled. This time her little snake eyes zero in on Angel. "And you--I don't know who the heck you are, boy," she says to Angel, "but you ain't showing up here at all." She taps the bowl. "I seen him—" jerks her chin at Dean—"And he's exactly who he say he is though no one else believe it. Time in hell passes way different than time out here."

Dean jerks, pales and she cackles. "Don’t you worry none—this tall drink a'water behind me is deaf as a stone—and only a Goddamn fool gets theyselves involved in the affairs of angels or demons. Sure as a amen in a prayer it'll come back and eat yer ass clean off."

"So…Angel. That's a funny name for you, ain't it? You're about a mountain high and a brick wall wide—don't look much like an angel." She leans across the little marble table, grabs up a handful of fine white crystals and throws it at him. He yelps as it hits his eyes, instinct and pain makes him clap a hand over his face, and she stabs him right in the back of that hand with a long silver pin. Angel yowls, but his blood runs red and his skin doesn't blacken—he doesn't burn from the salt.

Dean grabs her bony wrist with a shaky hand. "Do that again and I'll kill you." Angel stares at him, mouth open. He blushes, and a small pleased smile bows his lips. Zonda shakes her hand free and chuckles. It's an evil chuckle.

"Oh ho. It's like that, is it?"

"You could have just asked, you know," Angel snarls and at her incredulous snort he hisses, "This might have tipped you off I'm not some--monster." He rolls a handful of silver slugs in his palm before dropping them on the table, and again she cackles like an evil little gnome.

"Yeah, that might prove it fine, but it's not as much fun—"

"Fun—" Angel leans back, closes his eyes for a beat and slowly breathes out before speaking again. "Word is that you have ways of helping. Getting things done."

She's swooping up the slugs and says, "Knew you was gone' ask that. Psychic an' all. And that I can do, but this I tell you for free--he gonna get you killed, Angel-boy. He's rushing you to your death. I can't see how or who but this I see plain. You gonna walk in there where the Boy King rules an' never walk out. You will cease to be."

"I won't let that happen," Dean snaps. "Sam won't hurt him—once I get to him, it'll change, it'll get better. I'll fix it."

Zonda throws her arms up and curses in exasperation. "You won’t do that either! Death is all over you, boy--you running to him who more'n like will kill you'ns. _Definitely_ gonna kill you—" she points at Angel and Dean shakes his head firmly. He _knows._ He's sure right down to his bones that--

"No. Not Sammy. He loves me; he won't kill Angel because I'll ask him not to." That fucking little voice whispers he'll kill Angel, just because Dean has the nerve to love him, too….

Angel jerks, nearly tumbling Zonda's glass off the table. She glares at Dean for a beat before huffing, "Idyits." She shoves a small piece of paper, scrawled over with what looks like a map drawn by a child, across the little tabletop. "Now, you go here, tell him Zonda said you need a safe pass. He'll know it come from me if he hears 'maybe the roses will rise'."

"What, and we don’t get a secret handshake with that? Maybe a decoder ring?"

"Dean—" Angel snaps and Zonda gives Dean a thin, non-amused, look.

"I might not know what the hell you're talking about boy, but I know a smart mouth when I hear one. You best watch yourself. You got no place to go but down, if I let you'ns loose. I'm all you got right now," she tells Dean and Angel grabs the paper before she can change her mind--digs his nails into Dean's arm just as Dean's about to tell the batty old gnome where she can cram her warning. They both ignore his yelp of pain…Angel gives Zonda a weak little smile.

"He's an idiot, Dona, please don't…"

She flaps her hands and says, "Take that jackass out of here before I change my mind." She peers closer at Dean and leers in a way that makes him more than a little uneasy. "Unless…there's a little bit of siren juice in him yet? If so I might see my way to givin' you back yer money."

Angel's eyes widen—his mouth twists into a scowl and before Dean can dodge him, he's yanking Dean to his feet. "We're going now—right now. Tha-thank you for your help, Dona."

Angel stalks out of the tent and Dean staggers after, the sound of Zonda's cackling chasing after them. "What the hell was that, Angel? What's she talking about?"

Angel hisses, "Bitch—she thinks it's funny. Talking about what the queen—what she gave you."

"Gave me? Gave me what?" Dean frowns, trying to recall his time with that whacked out bitch--and then it hits him. The only way he'd be so. So crazed, like that—even barely remembering, he had a sense of how out of his mind he'd been—how wrong. "Succubus _"blood—_ _fuck_ me." The very thought of how that stuff worked—the shit it could make a person do--makes him go weak in the knees with horror, lashed by twisted flashes of memory. The things he did…had been done to him….

He staggers, plants his hands on his knees and hangs his head—he's going to vomit again. Fuck, he's _praying_ to vomit again.

He hears Angel snap, "God, yer like a fuckin' baby—can't you keep anything in?" but there's a broad, warm, hand on his back, rubbing big, warm circles into his curved spine and he ends up with Angel's long fingers knuckling the tight spot at the base of his skull, slow and sure and strong. Dean's eyes fall shut, he leans against Angel but mostly all he can only think of is what went into him and how desperately he wants to get it _out._

It is nice to be touched by someone who doesn't want anything more than to comfort him.

Angel's good at this comfort thing, Dean thinks, as he coaxes Dean gently and firmly away from the main drag of the marketplace. He checks Zonda's map from time to time, leading them down back alleys and between tents and shops until they end up in front of a small wagon. A sign's propped up by the steps. _**Fortunes, Charms, Enchantments**_.

The wagon was probably, once upon a time, a brilliant red but now is a dull maroon, paint crocodiled and faded with age. There's a gilded crow's skull nailed over the door, incongruously bright against the shabby wreck of a wagon. They knock and a short, cadaverous man cracks open the door, peering at them through the narrow open strip in an owl-like way. He blinks, and it draws attention to how blue his eyes are, a peculiar robin's egg blue.

Dean flicks a half-hearted wave at him and mutters, "The uh…maybe the roses will…y'know, rise. Whatever," he finishes with a grimace. He digs his fingers into the base of his skull and blows out a breath—elbows Angel hard when the bitch lets out a breathy snicker.

"Ow," Angel mutters, "you jerk-off." Stops dead when the door is thrown wide.

"Oh dear," the painfully thin man flutters in place for a moment, glance flitting from Dean to Angel and back again. "Zonda, oh dear." He frowns, but steps aside to let them in. "I don't know what she told you, but I don't do anything more than basic readings and simple charms, that's all…sign's old, I don’t do enchantments anymore…."

The interior isn't much better, just as dull and shabby as the outside and reeking of cabbage, years and years of boiled cabbage.

"Sit if you like. You may call me Gavreel, if you need a name. Some people need names or it's like they've never met you. I know your name though I've never met you. You're--notorious," he says and chuckles briefly. "But here I am, I'm going on needlessly, I do that some times. My brothers used to complain of it frequently--" the cadaver guy—Gavreel--gives Dean a crooked smile but gasps a little when he catches sight of Angel. "You. You're…" He blinks, presses a hand to his mouth and stares at Angel with such naked hunger that Dean snarls, steps between them. His hand reaches for the weapon that should be at his back. Gavreel looks flustered for a moment before his face settles into a benign blandness. "Sorry, he just…your Boy is special, he's got…charm. Let me touch him. Just a tiny touch and I'll give you what you came for. Safe passage out, protection."

"Fuck no," Dean shouts, at the same time Angel says, "Yes, all right."

Dean's had about enough of standing on the sidelines and letting this kid take care of him. He's had enough of people doing more than they should, sacrificing too fucking much for him—"No! I'm not—selling you, trading you, not for anything," Dean snaps, "you're—"

Angel shakes his head and smiles at Dean. "De, it's nice you getting all warped about it, but what do you think I was raised to do? I've been taking care of myself for a long time, it's no big deal. Besides, he really does mean just touch, don’t you?" he asks Gavreel.

The man swallows thickly and nods, reaches a junkie-thin, shaky hand out to Angel and touches, sliding his index finger over the back of Angel's hand.

The effect it has on Gavreel is startling. His eyes roll back to a solid white and he trembles from head to toe. Instinct sends Dean grabbing for Angel, crashing to the ground with him. Gavreel yells something neither of them can understand and then--wings rip out of the man, spread wide, fill the whole of the little van. Dean feels them; they're like a shadow of feathers rushing over him, the cool moist feel of fog, the soft brush of cotton. The feeling rushes over his skin and inside of him in some way. Dean shudders and claps a hand over Angel's eyes, "Don’t look—" and closes his own tight. He's got a damn good idea what's coming next. He prays for their hearing and waits.

It's not so bad. There comes the sound of a tidal wave, the rush of a tornado, a high-pitched scream that burns, the feel of a nova exploding on the head of a pin. There's so much light—too much—and then darkness, quiet, and the faint smell of chocolate.

"Thank you," the man murmurs. He touches two fingers to Dean and to Angel and says something that Dean doesn't understand, but that still sounds vaguely familiar to him and then--Dean burns a million years in the flick of an eyelash. He grabs his chest, catches Angel when he falls against him. "Fucking what the hell was that?"

"I've enhanced the sigils that you possessed, gave the boy the same. Did you know that you had them?"

Dean rubs his chest. "Yeah…Cas did…man, I think he did that twice to me and now you—what the hell is it with you dicks tagging me?"

The angel laughs, "Graffiti, yes, put that way, it is amusing." He points to Dean's side, and says, "You have been made invisible to demons and angels, which you know. You've also had a block put on your memories. And…there's another non-detection aspect to that spell. Humans with demonic aspects can't pick you up either. 'Demonic aspect' pertains to those who, voluntarily or not, have scrawled the evil that demons carry over their souls. It is a bit like losing grace," he adds in a fussy, confiding sort of aside. "I feel this protective spell was crafted with your brother in mind. He has half his soul, what grace left was tainted by the demon blood inside him, it struck like a snake the minute there was nothing to hold it in check."

"Half his soul? How the fuck does a thing like that happen—was it the blood? Did it mutilate his soul?"

Graveel shakes his head. "No, not the blood—not alone. It tastes like divine intervention—though something tells me the result was…skewed. Your brother gave permission to the Fallen. I believe it was meant for what was deeply, essentially, _good_ in your brother's soul to expulse the Morning Star directly into hell. It may be that when the Morning Star began to fall, he released his power to whatever was evil in your brother. Combining Lucifer, the blood, that part of Samuel that reveled in the power of the blood and…he became more powerful than anyone expected. Whatever took him…winnowed his soul, so to speak. The good in it is gone—disintegrated, lost somewhere between heaven and hell. Samuel pulled you right in with him when he went to take his crown. That was an unfortunate accident. He's come into his own now. But…there's a chance that you can destroy him. Your Boy knows how."

Angel snaps, "I'm not his Boy an' you're talking shit."

The angel ignores him. "I can't help you, none of my kind can. We who remain—we are the tainted, less than we were once…" Gavreel makes a grimace meant to pass for a smile. "You should take great care on the path from here to Chronopolis, there are eyes and ears everywhere, they can only do the best they can to conceal your presence. Hide from them, as well as you can. And you…” he turns to Angel. “He'll kill you. If Dean gets his brother back, you'll die, without a doubt. Samuel is…jealous. Terribly possessive."

"Nomine Dei! I wish the fuck people would stop telling me I'm gonna die! 'Cause I'm not dying for anyone, Dean included. I don’t—I won’t lay down for anyone.” He cast a narrow, furious look at Dean, his eyes and cheeks red. “I’m not—don't fuckin' dare ask me to do that."

"Of course not," Dean shouts. "Why would I—how can you think I’d sacrifice you, for fucks sake?"

"Because it’s your _brother,"_ Angel hisses and clamps his lips together. He glares at the floor, twists his arms across himself. "You know that's all it takes."

Gavreel flutters around a tall, thin chest covered with tiny drawers, dips his hand into one and comes up behind Angel, carefully not touching. "This is in thanks." He has something cupped in his hands, he drops his head, mutters a few brief words. Light leaks out between his clasped hands—for seconds bright as a welding arc before fading, leaving a scent in the air like after a summer storm. He opens his hands. There are two tiny silver bits in his palm, they look like stylized eyes. "These will act as masks--it only works against humans. As long as you're wearing the pendants, your own mothers wouldn't know you. Give me your fingers."

They reluctantly hold out their hands and the angel pricks a finger, instructs them to dot both the pendants with their blood. "So you will know each other."

Dean scowled. "I thought you didn't do enchantments and shit."

"I…got topped up…temporarily, I guess you could say." Gavreel smiles and it's awfully reminiscent of Castiel. Makes Dean feel homesick for his old life.


	18. The Floating City (part g)

They test the angel's word and wearing the pendants, stroll back to their tent like they own the place, take what they need to. It's an odd experience, Dean thinks, walking through the town without being noticed. He walks right past Horse and the man never turns his way. He's thinking, worrying…Gavreel mentioned a block on his memories. Dean's known something was missing since he woke up in Terror Dome land. He's been kind of sort of sidling up on thinking it had something to do with Sam. But…divine intervention, that made him think of Cas…Dean lets out a long breath, follows Angel to the Out town wagons. He'll think about that another day—add it to his damn list of things to someday think about.

They catch a ride on the back of a wagon leaving the market after trading fruit to the Floating City. Dean carries their pack, his gun snug on the bottom of the bag. He keeps his fingers pressed against it, taking some comfort in the shape of it digging into his palm. The thick, hot smell of ox, the slow sway and bump of the wagon and the afternoon sun combine to work on Angel, calming him. He slides closer and closer to Dean until finally he's full out laying on him and snoring in Dean's lap. Dean sets the bag to the side and shifts Angel so he's comfortably lying against him, strokes his hair back from his face and just…keeps on stroking it. It's all grown out now, still weirdly asymmetrical but it's touching the back of his neck and curling around his ears…his shoulders are broader now too, and Dean thinks that with more food and more rest, Angel would be kind of threatening—to strangers, never to him. His fingers card through the kid's hair, rub around the back of his ears in soft, slow circles. Dean feels…the homesickness rolls back just a bit, just enough to let him draw a breath….

After an hour or so, Angel wakes up, and they split an ugly-orange and some dried lumps Angel swears is meat between the two of them. Dean notices that a few hunters on horseback mill around the wagons, must be going along as guards. They ride past and leer at him. Angel waves at them and they grin at Dean, make suggestive motions that hard as they are to make on horseback, it's easy to get the gist of.

Dean growls. "Pervert fucks."

"They think we're some guy and his slave—your bed-warmer." Angel shrugs, like he'd just mentioned the weather instead of being thought of as Dean's sextoy.

"What? Hey…is that what everyone's been thinking? Is that why they keep calling you my "boy"? Fuck!" He scrubbed a hand across his face. Slavery…the very idea turned his stomach—"Wait—I thought you said slavery was outlawed—"

Angel snorts. "It is—in the Out Towns, the mining camps. Out here, it does just fine." He glanced over at the outriders. "Yeah, they're making fun of you for traveling with such an old slave…."

"Old? Christ, you're barely—what—eighteen? Jesus." Dean wipes his mouth, scrubs at it like he's bitten into something sour. He was definitely ignoring the fact that, yeah, he was perving on the kid…"This world is so fucked up. This is all so wrong. I'm sorry."

"Eh. It's not all bad—could definitely be worse." Angel shrugs. "Besides, this gig with you is the best I've ever had. Hunh…kind of sad when you think about it."

"Fuck you," Dean says and likes it when all Angel does is smile. After a bit, the kid points up towards the hills they've come from. "Normally, no one would think twice about folks leaving the city but just to be on the safe side, let's assume that bitch is looking for you. We're supposed to be safe, but just because they can't see our faces, doesn't mean they can't scry us."

Dean nods. "Right. Not everything relies on sight."

"We're going to be leaving the caravan when they turn towards the Out Towns. We'll have to be extra careful. The way towards Chronopolis isn't easy for lone travelers. At least, I've got a Hunter traveling with me," Angel grins.  
Dean grins back. He feels for the gun in his bag, takes a quick mental inventory. Gun, knife…not much else. Angel shakes the basket at him. "There's some salt, enough for making camp circles. Herbs to keep some stuff away—not much but hopefully, enough."

6 

They drop off the tail of the wagon come night, and make their way quickly back through the ocean of grass. Listening for pursuit, listening for other noises. As the night wears on, Dean tracks sounds that make him nervous. Not too far behind them in the dark comes a low coughing growl. There's the flutter of wings, many wings. Sounds like bat wings to him. Big, huge, fucking giant, probably hungry, bats' wings….

Angel looks fairly serene though, so Dean tries to keep a leash on his paranoia. It's just, stumbling through the dark has never been one of his favorite things. There's a reason he loves his solid, Detroit steel car.

The grassy hills start to give way to rough uneven ground, dotted with scrubby shrubs, small pines, and flower-speckled hummocks of vegetation. The clouds are hanging lower, the sky grayer, by the time they work their way deeper into the desert. Out of sight of the plains, Angel finally lets them stop. "Over that crest, and south, that's where Chronopolis starts, see?" Angel points towards a gentle rise breaking up the tumbled landscape. Dean can just make out the tips of what look like steel pylons poking at the sky. "We won’t run into any real towns between here and the city. There's mostly temporary places, not as big as towns but almost as safe. People out here don’t want to attract notice. Dys is too close, hunters are too scarce."

Dean helps him clear out great handfuls of a bright green vine until they've cleared a little campsite. They bunch up the vines to throw their blankets over, pile them up into a bit of a windbreak. "It'll hide the fire too," Angel says, though at this point Dean's hands are sore and he's pretty fucking tired so he doesn't really give a shit. He catches the bedroll Angel tosses to him, tosses it over the vines, close to Angel's spot. He scuffs a shallow depression into the dirt and helps Angel ring it with rocks, watches the kid pull tea out of his seemingly bottomless pack and reminds himself to weigh those packs come morning.

The fire started, Angel flops loose-limbed as a puppet back onto the pile he's covered with his blanket. Dean sits on his own blanket, the vines a surprisingly comfortable mattress. He empties his bag, dragging the revolver out from the bottom of the pack. He loads it with silver/iron mix rounds, stashes it back in his belt and feels, for the first time in a long time, like he's completely dressed. "We should get a holster for this thing," he says. "This kinda gun needs to be in a holster, right on my hip."

Angel smirks at Dean. "Sure thing, Barnacle Bill."

"Dude, _Buffalo_ Bill—" Dean interrupts, "the cowboy?" he goes on at Angel's confused look. " _Barnacle Bill_ is a sailor—come on, you know this," he practically yelps when Angel wants to know what difference it makes.

Angel pours some of their water into a pot, sets it in the fire. He bites his lip. Shrugs. "Oookay, nomportah, bru… when we get to Chronopolis, you can trade up for a pretty little gun hammock, all right?"

 _Gun hammock?_ Dean wrinkles his nose at the guy, appalled at his lack of knowledge. The dude's seriously lacking in education…he curses when Angel lets out the laugh it must have been killing him to hold in. "Shut up. Asshole. Hey, think they're gonna come after us, that crew?" Dean jerks his chin back in the general direction that they'd come from. "Well? Do you think she's gonna take a run at us?" he asks again when Angel seems disinclined to answer.

Angel drops tea into the pot before answering Dean. "The Bitch Queen? Doubt it. If they didn't get us before we got to the hills, she won’t give chase. Too risky, and she doesn't know that you really are worth something, seems like—"

Dean grabs Angel's wrist and pulls him closer. "I don't get it. I told you who I was before—I've told everyone, just about, and no one believed me. Until now. "

"Because it wasn't possible—it was just a story, something you tell kids to get them to stop acting like little shits. And there you are, looking like ass, smelling like ass and talking like a lokar, but—and then the seer said--" Angel hesitates; Dean feels the tremor that shakes him through his grip on Angel's arm. "This is the story they tell: When Dean Winchester left his brother behind in Dys, he broke him first, and that's why the King is like he is. Evil, vindictive, twisted around seeking revenge. Some say Dean Winchester is dead and some say he can't die, just like the brother, that he's forever ageless and hard-hearted. Just about everyone agrees that all that's wrong is Dean Winchester's fault. Somehow, something he did, broke the back of the world and if Dean Winchester ever crosses your path, he'll do it to you—"

Angle tells the story in the cadence of a story-teller repeating a myth. Dean drops the kid's wrist, waves of nausea wash over him. He was a monster, the world thought he was a monster…well fuck, maybe it was true.

"So _Dean,_ what's the truth? Why are you looking for your Sam so hard? Why do you want to be with him again? He's going to kill you, you know he will regardless of the truth, and according to the sayers, he's going to want me dead too and I'm nobody, just the guy who tried to help you. Maybe I should just leave…"

"Nobody's keeping you here—" Dean snaps, just wanting to be. Shit. Asleep. Gone. Just…not thinking, not breathing. Safe, for once in his miserable fucking life.

Angel looks at Dean, barely masking the hurt. Snaps, "Get over yourself. You couldn't keep me here if you wanted to." He stops, looks a little puzzled, like he wasn't sure what he meant to say but was pretty sure that wasn't it. "Dei knows I'm not hanging out for your witty banter and sparkling personality." He tosses more twigs into the fire, with a bit more vigor than called for and mutters just at the edge of hearing, "Can't imagine why anyone would leave your ugly ass. You so madida charming to be with and all…"

"Yeah, hate you too," Dean snarls back and then—startles Angel by laughing. It's just hit him—he's probably had about a million conversations that start just like that. Sitting now, almost close enough to touch, Dean can see the grin Angel tries to squash. Dean watches him from the corner of his eye, Angel's long legs pulled up to his pointy chin. Angel's grown taller, definitely. When he'd met him first, Dean swore they were eye to eye, maybe he'd been an inch or two taller than the boy. Now, Angel was definitely taller by that inch or two. Still god awful skinny though…he really needed to make that kid eat. And shave, that dirtstach was ridiculous….

~o0o~ 

The moon's high over the hills when they lay down for the night. Dean tries not to feel hunger pangs—dried whatever it was and tea didn't much cut it for him. He was used to hunger, could deal with it—but didn't mean he had to like it. As if reading his mind, Angel said. "Tomorrow, we'll meet up with stragglers or Edgers—they're good about sharing food." He tosses a canteen at Dean. "We still got water at least. A little. I'm pretty sure there's water close by. These vines seek out water. We'll just follow them come morning. Then we can make hot food—I nipped some travel cakes on the way out."

Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes no critter would try and cross it before morning.

~o0o~ 

Dean takes a careful swig and passes the canteen back to Angel, watches him roll himself up in his blanket and settle in. He sighs, caps the canteen. The kid made it sound damn easy. Sure sign that things would go to shit. Wasn't that the first lesson a Winchester learned? He eyes the ring of salt and hopes nothing's gonna try and cross it before morning.

~o0o~ 

Night birds call to each other in the dark. The fire cracks and hisses as it slowly dies down to coals… Angel takes deep even breaths, steady as a metronome.

Dean's got his head tilted back against his pack, blanket settled loosely about him, and watches the sparks jump from the fire and into the night sky. His eyes try to make shapes of the trails and wisps of smoke; he traces the slope of a dog's head in the smoke, a glowing ember lending an eye. He blinks, and in the coals, dragons wings unfold, then a mouth open in a scream…out of nowhere, his chest explodes in pain so deep and wrenching that it breaks out in a sob, and tears run no matter how hard he fights to stop them. Like a switch's been flipped, they pour out, the memories…feels like he's just lost the only thing that made his life worth living. Sam's name grates out from between his clenched teeth, ripping out of him like claws. Sam, who was everything, Sam whom he'd failed, lost, Sam, Sam--

He's on his knees with his arms wrapped around his middle and crying like he's all alone. He knows it all now. It rolls over him in sick, filthy waves. He knew where he was and why. Sam. Sam had done his best to kill him. Not to kill him--to turn him into an animal. Hell, he'd _done_ it.

 _"Do you ever wonder, Roach, what I'm doing? Wonder about the rest of the world? Do you think at all?"_

 

"Stop, stop, Dean, stop." Arms around him, pulling him back off his knees, warm and solid. He smells Sam, feels him, his Sam, the real Sam, not that thing that'd tried to pull him apart in sticky strings, he feels the Sam who loves him, and wants nothing but the best for him, the Sam who's stopped running at last….

He squirms around until he's turned in Sam's arms and Sam grabs him by the nape of the neck, huge hands warm and tucking Dean under his chin and not even commenting on the snot and tears Dean's smearing into his skin. "It was a nightmare, a horrible nightmare."

"I know, I know, it wasn't real."

"You're here, right--here? Really here?"

"I'm not going anywhere, Dean, right here, okay? Everything else is nomportah, 'kay? Just you and me, Deus, forever."

"Okay, okay…" Dean tilts his face up and despite the gluey mess all over it, Sam kisses him, kisses him, pets him, murmurs comfort against Dean's cheek and Dean's awake now, knows it's not Sam but he needs it so much and Angel's just like Sam at eighteen, built the same, same smell same feel…shit. Fuck that, the truth is, he loves Angel for being Angel and has for a while

He's on his back and staring up at the stars, Angel's breath hot in his ear, groaning, sweating, little curses raining from his mouth as he grinds between Dean's spread legs. Dean gasps at each new thrill of sensation, eyes wide and fluttering hands fisted in Angel's hair and his legs come up to lock around Angel's hips. He knows it's Angel and doesn't feel guilty because this is right, this is what he's wanted ever since Cas threw him out of the window of Sam's office---he's wanted back there, back in that dream world where it was sweet and Sam and everything he ever wanted out of life—so what if Sam never wanted the same from him, so what if every kiss was full of shame, guilt? He'd stopped caring. Never stopped wanting….

But here, in this life, Angel wants it. Fuck, he wants so much, so hard, so fucking grateful that Dean is holding him, letting him—fuck that, Angel _needs_ him and the wet dripping down the side of his neck isn't Angel's sweat. Dean holds him closer, soothing him through the aftermath, tells him everything he wasn't able to tell Sam because Sam…he couldn't have loved Dean like this. Sam never had to tell Dean he didn't want him like this, never had to say a word because Dean knew it in his bones.


	19. The Boy and Girl of Summer

1

  
They fall asleep, sticky, glued inside their clothes and wrapped around each other so tight that they don’t know who ends where and they don't care.

The next morning, Dean sincerely regrets not getting up and wiping off, but luckily Angel does find the water he'd mentioned a possibility of. Still has the nerve to give Dean bitchface, like he was the only one who came. When he points it out to Angel, the bitch just flips him off.  
He's thawed a bit by "breakfast": a couple of pieces of dried meat boiled in a pot full of some sort of grain along with some raisiny-looking things. It's weird but filling. In the way concrete is but what the fuck, food is food.  
"So…you really are his brother." Angel says between mouthfuls. "And he tried to kill you. And an angel saved you, a real live angel like Gavreel? Castiel…hunh. And maybe…he's looking for you because, what, he loves you, our good Brother Citizen? Because from where I'm sitting, no offense, I'm thinking not so much. I mean…green-eyed brunets are in short supply because he…he does things to them, the pretty ones anyway. Like you."

Dean shudders. "My-ah, my brother, he's always been kind of possessive, I guess. Maybe whatever fucked-up mess Castiel made of him magnified that part of him past a million. He hates me because he still…you know. Thinks I belong to him. Maybe because I fucked him up because I--" Dean clams up; he's already said too much. He loses common sense around Angel, damn kid.

Angel licks the mess they're eating out of the corners of his mouth, eyes Dean speculatively. "You can say love, bru—doubt there's much you can tell me that will make me run screaming. Hell, I was five when they threw me in a breaker's bed. Not much I haven't seen. Heard." Angel shrugs but Dean can read him, and it makes him want to rage, kill something himself. He fights the feeling down, and reaches over to cup Angel's cheek. "Hey, I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna keep you safe from now on, I swear."

Behind him a voice says, "Shit, then you're about to be really fucking disappointed, dude."  
A thick, phlegmy laugh rings out and Dean curses—how the fuck did he get snuck up on? He pushes Angel flat and tries to cover him but Angel knocks him aside, shouts out "Christe!" and the demon shrinks back, beetle black eyes clicking over the human. Behind him stands another, with something crouching next to it.

"You fuckers…salt, iron. Holy words." The demon speaking picks his way carefully around the scatter of herbs Angel tossed around the salt. "You think that will stop us?" He snaps his hand and the crouching figure stands, runs to it, along with anothers they hadn't noticed lurking in the shadows. Three demons in all, and two who are—not.

Angel slumps against Dean and hisses, "Horses, damn it. Fucking…" he snatches for his pack but before he can even touch it, a foot swipes through the salt, breaking their protection. Dean curses and dives for his bedroll and the gun stashed under it, but one of the Horses has it. It giggles and kicks Dean in the face before yanking the gun away.

"Oops, clumsy me." The thing lisps though a thing like a bit between its teeth. Its companion jitters and shakes and giggles as the demons come through passage it broke in the salt ring. Dean and Angel are on their feet, ready to fight and knowing damn well that it's useless but the thing about humans? They'll fight on regardless of the odds, throw themselves into the maw of Death…or maybe that's just Winchesters, Dean thinks. Angel tosses him a wild, reckless smile, stupid, beautiful bastard, and says, "Hey. Think we can outrun them?"

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/roxymissrose/pic/000h2zq4/)  
Sam—Samuel—is leaning against the thick, bullet-proof glass of his office windows, gaze caught by the activity on the perfectly manicured yard below him. He watches the crew break down the cameras, the lights, and reviews the little bit of theater they’d beamed to his part of the world…Good Brother Citizen, caring for his people, like any good shepherd would…feeding, protecting…culling the flock….

He smiles and shrugs the suit jacket to settle more comfortably on his shoulders. Time to get back to his real work. His entourage sweeps him through the hotel doors, kicks stragglers and those not quick enough out of the way. His Majesty is on the move and hell help anyone stupid enough to cross his path. They take the elevator, the one that goes to the top floor—and also to the bottomest of bottom floors—the Basement. It makes him giggle a little, thinking of how far down the bottom is. They exit at the top and Samuel pushes open the door to his office. Something flickers at the corner of his eye…something always flickers just out of his eyesight, here in the office and in his private suite. The walls…the walls move somehow…there's something on the walls that keep moving out of his eyesight no matter how hard he looks…he's perfectly aware of how crazy that sounds but of course, he's fucking totally insane, has been forever. He relishes it. Makes it easier to enjoy what he does and who he is. Besides, it runs in the family--wouldn't be a Winchester without being bug-fuck crazy, Sam thinks.

He unlocks his suite and a few of his captains enter with him and take up posts at the doors and windows. They crouch near his desk and lounge against the walls to watch silently. Waiting for his command. It warms Samuel, knowing that he owns every bit of them. That they'd kill for him at a blink. Of course, they'd kill him at a blink if they thought they could get away with it…it's just business sense to gut one unexpectedly from time to time. Reminds them who’s boss….

He tosses the cracked piece of curved yellowed ivory that serves as the key into a bowl on an ebony stained walnut table. Strides across a white fur rug and comes to a stop in front of a long, white leather couch. There are a few black suede throw pillows on the couch, and pressed against the left arm of the couch, a blind angel. “How are you doing today?”

The angel flinches at Sam's voice and leans a little harder into the corner of the couch.

Samuel fishes an apple out of a blood red glass dish on the table behind the couch. He snaps a bite from it, the breaking of its crisp skin loud in the silence. Samuel watches Cas twitch and shudder. “Cat got your tongue?” Sam mutters as he passes the cringing angel, who involuntarily makes a croaking sound and blushes a dark red. Sam grins as Cas tries to shrink into himself. “Take your time; I'm willing to wait until you heal. How about when you can speak again, we talk about where you hid it. In other words, the same thing we do every night, Pinkie.” He laughs, loud and pleased and everyone in the room jerks to attention, surreptitiously slide away from one another.

Samuel slips his jacket off and drops it without a thought, ignores the scramble behind him to catch it. "I've been looking, all over the land, in every place that I can go, I've looked. I've scried and quested, I've run through lakes of blood and mountains of bone and shifted miles of entrails through my fingers and I find nothing. I've looked in places I can't go…thanks to you. My eyes and ears, looking out for me, listening for me." Samuel trails his hand over the little black boxes draped here and there in the room. Little boxes filled with periwinkle eyes that blink slowly at the caress, like cats approving of the attention given them. The screen opposite his desk plays out the scene in the office. Other screens show other views—a caravan in the grasslands that separate the Out towns from Chronopolis, The Alley between Chronopolis and Dys. The bronze trees on the gates of Dys, the gates of hell.

Mahogany boxes inlaid with ivory and fronted by brass and copper mesh flank the screens. The boxes vibrate on their slick, purplish-grey cables, as if struggling to keep the prince in view. Every time Samuel fingers the little eye boxes, the beautiful mahogany boxes moan.

Cas ducks his head at the sound. The black tails of the blindfold he's wearing tickle the sweep of his pale collarbones. His hands drift up from his lap and trace the edge of his ear, outlines the shell, the smile that curves his lips seems almost fond.

"Well, nothing to say? Not gonna tell me how all you want to do is help me, heal me, blah-blah?" Samuel stares out of the suite’s narrow windows; down to another view of the perfect lawn, too perfectly perfect, as if yards and yards of green plastic have been draped over the earth. A high iron fence surrounds all the land that can be seen from the window, spikes top the fence and in some places, things sit skewered on the spikes. He turns from the window and faces Castiel, watches the shivers that run over him, the way his lips part to let small gasps tumble out.

"You're ready for questions now," he says and Cas shivers, a soft laugh is his only response. "That's right, we resume our daily game. I want you to tell me where it is. Tell me, where did it go?" Since those brief images what felt like months and months ago, his brother has…poof! Disappeared, and it's making Samuel cranky. Very cranky.

"I don’t know, Samuel." Cas' voice is soft and hoarse, barely understandable. He grunts when Samuel grabs a handful of greasy black hair and yanks his head back, his neck a strained column of black and blue and red.

"You _must_ know, you lost it for me. So tell me, where did it go?"

"Somewhere far from here. I don’t know."

"Some far place? Or some far time?" Samuel releases his grip and absent-mindedly wipes his hand on his pants. "Come on, Cas. We’ve been doing this dance for too many years…haven’t you tired of it yet?"

Cas shakes his head and gives Samuel another small smile, the kind of smile that says _'I’m little and inoffensive…'_ "I don't know where or when or--anything." His smile trembles and breaks apart. "I swear to you, I don't know. Please—"

"PLEASE?" Samuel swells, his eyes flash ocher and mustard and his teeth grind until the hinge of his jaw cracks, his hands close on the angel and he squeezes. Hard.

"WHAT?" he shouts, when the speakers over the screen facing him whine with feed-back, an almost human sounding moan. Static buzzes and rolls over the screens.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" he shouts, and the little black boxes draped here and there, wiggling on their glistening cables, slam their little scallop blue eyes shut, one after the other like dominos falling. In the room, in the hall, all through the hotel and on every pole top and—everywhere, the blue eyes slam shut and Sam's screens go dark.

The demons in the room mill anxiously, each one pushing to get behind the other….

"Fuckin' useless things--" Samuel raves, shreds a demon who loses by being too slow, "--ya can't see it, can't hear it, what fuckin' good are ya?" He smashes his blood-gloved hands through the row of little black boxes nearest him, and they burst into flame—all through the hotel boxes burst into flame and die. Ash blows through the halls and Cas gasps, moans in tune with the mahogany boxes....

"All right," Samuel pants, rage blown off at last, "all right. That's—that's fine." He wipes gore from his face, his hands. Ash dusts the blood, the gobbets of flesh that dribble down the walls, little piles of ash and lumps of meat mar his desktop. He snaps his fingers and snarls to no one in particular, confident it will be done, "Clean this shit up."

Sam blows ash away from Castiel's blindfold. The angel's untouched by anything else and the empty, melted black boxes stare at Sam, mocking him. That's another set of eyes he's ruined. He shrugs and glares at Castiel. Plenty more where they came from…he looks at the untouched shelf that holds the other eyes, the eyes he keeps because they're pretty and remind him of his mission. Well, the other mission, the one separate from Rule Hell and Rule the World. These are dead, little dead eyes, so green, so pretty. So pure….

When he found it again and took its eyes, those eyes would be more beautiful than any of these copies.

“Him.” Castiel rocks in his chair, mutters, "Him, not it. Dean, not it. Dean…Dean…Dean…."

“Shut up. SHUT up. Shut up before I take you to pieces. Again. Now get up.” Samuel takes the angel's elbow in his hand and yanks him to his feet. Steers him towards the door. “In fact, it's time to have a little fun. I need new cameras anyway.”

He takes the elevator to the Basement and the bronze doors opened on a burning red plain. The sound of leather wings snapping in a storm make Samuel smile, the smell of sulfur and blood and shit make him chuckle. "It's going to be another good day, don’t you think?"


	20. The Boy and Girl of Summer  (part b)

2

  
Dean sprints after Angel, leaving their bags and everything they have inside the broken circle of salt. He does his best to keep himself between what's chasing them and Angel as they sprint for some impossible hope of shelter, running towards the rocky edges of the desert. The towers of Chronopolis break through the morning mists, pale with distance but _there—_ and no way were they going to make it, not even close. Even if they'd had a decent head-start, the demons would scent them out, hunt them down and do what demons did. If Angel's lucky, they'll kill him. Dean knows for himself, it'll be the end—bloody, sharp and quick if he's lucky--the minute those freak bastards find out they can't get in him. Their breath saws in and out as they run, harsh and panicked, Dean's heart slamming with anger at himself as well as fear. They shouldn't have been caught out like that, they should have been safe and invisible to the damn monsters, would have been but for those fucking human--slaves, pets, what the fuck ever--pointing them out. At least, the freaks had no idea who he was and Dean figures the demons are gonna kill him without ever knowing what they have. That'd be the only good thing to come out of this fucking mess--

They get taken down at the point the desert bled into meadow, and from that point on, it got pretty bad.   


~o0o~ 

Dean comes awake with a blinding headache, a rasping pain in his neck and a weird smell in his nose, kind of a cross between Vicks and sage. As soon as his brain comes back on line he's looking for Angel, just about to panic when he realizes that the weight pressed hot against his back _is_ Angel and slumps with relief—gags. The pain in his neck is a rope cinched tight and connecting him to Angel. The kid shudders and snores, jerks awake when Dean's sharp movement pulls the rope tighter around his neck too.

Dean takes in shallow, oxygen starved breaths, and slowly realizes that the jingling, ringing, metallic sound he hears is real. He cuts his eyes to the left and startles. Staked out almost close enough to touch are the creepy, jittery, giggling freaks Angel called Horses. Chains are threaded through the head gear that reminds Dean of bridles and locked around short, metal poles. The freaks are too damn close—they stink, besides the smell of the Vicks/sage shit they've got smeared all over their bodies—they reek of unwashed human. Dean's relieved that they’re quiet now compared to before—one of them is sitting listlessly in the dust, picking at crusted sores on its arm, scratching and picking until blood runs while the other watches, silently, transfixed by the stream of red…

"Fucking freak creep demons," Dean hisses and tries to shift, determined despite the rope to keep himself between them and Angel.

"Not demons," the watching one says, words garbled by the thick bit in its jaws. It's not taking its eyes from the rill of blood. The other's lost interest in scarring itself, was now pulling at its hair, ripping clumps loose.

"What the fuck are you, then?" Dean asks and Angel growls, actually growls, startling Dean and frankly, freaking him out a bit.

"It's a fucking Horse—these looks like volunteer hosts. Pets, freaks…they follow the monsters around and when they're needed, let themselves be ridden." Angel spits in the Horses' direction and they giggle and point, mocking Dean's anger and Angel's disgust. "Thought there are—"

"No—what?" Dean interrupts. _"The fuck? They're people?_ Who would volunteer for that? That's disgusting, dude-- _disgusting."_ He stares at the shorter one, a blonde with the kind of breasts that would have kept his attention through a hurricane—back before Sam. She echoes Dean, "Disgusting—disgusting—" and both the Horses dissolve into whooping, howling, laughter.

"Shut up, you stupid fucks." The demon who'd wandered up while they were talking kicks the Horse until Dean swears he hears its bones snap. The one Dean's pegged as the boss demon takes a little black box out of a bag he's got hanging off its shoulder and opens it. "Smile, green-eyes, let's see if your eyes are worth anything…." A single sapphire blue eye stares at Dean, blinks once and slams shut, eyelid, box, and all.

Dean recoils—there's something about that box—the eye—that's familiar. "What the fucking fuck is that?"

The head demon curses, shakes the box, banging it against the side of the pole its creature is chained to, whipping it through the air when it doesn't pop open. "Open up, you fuckin' piece of crap…damn it. I hate these things! Chronopolis have perfectly good metalwork cameras. Why the hell won't He join the twentieth century?"

"Twenty-first," one of the demons mutters.

"What? Are you sure?" Another asks. "Twenty-first? I'm pretty sure it's the thirtieth?"

"No, you idiot, twenty-first," the second one answers, and then squints, flips the edge of her palm back and forth. "Kind of sorta sideways but still, twenty-first."

"Ah! I swear, I loose track sometimes, all this back and forth and in and out—"

"If you two are through?" The demon in charge snarls at them.

"Okay, yes, sorry. So…they look good. Healthy. Strong. Good looking too. They should fetch a lot."

"Oh yeah—we heading right back to Dys. These meatbags are going to make our fortune—s'why I was trying to transmit a picture—" He grabs Dean's chin and wrenches it to face the firelight. "Green eyes, spotty skin—if we sell this thing, it means a litter of disposable hosts and pre-bang booze and nice digs…"

"Yeah…say, let's give them a try, just a taste…those two over there are really starting to bore me." There's an explosive burst of jingling and moaning in the Horses' direction.

"Yeah. They've about reached that point of crazy that it's pointless to ride them. You lose all that fine motor control, nothing tastes right anymore--"

"Oh yes, so true, oh I know," comes a chorus of agreements. Dean feels like the top of his head is about to blow off. For some reason, all the crazy around him is nothing compared to this trio of fucked up demons and the horrible way they remind him of Chip and Dale, if there'd been an extra rodent and they'd liked turning people into bloody confetti .

~o0o~ 

The demon boss smiles as he separates them, promises Angel he's gonna take good care of Dean. The demons ignore the shape-masking pendant, treat it like it doesn’t exist, but they try to cut off the lock-out tattoo, many times. The Horses slice and chop at Dean's skin until he can't hold back the screams; they hack at it again and again. His mind plays tricks on him--he gets flashes of himself being skinned, being splattered with acid. He sees himself doing it to others. He smells sulfur and shit, tastes ash, blood…the tattoo won't come off, nothing can break it, skinning his chest just draws the ink to the surface of new pink skin, and if Dean was halfway mentally present, he'd wonder how it was possible…

Finally they stop. But the fun continues—they turn their attention to Angel and for the first time since they've been caught, Dean utter belief that they're going to die is shaken. The demons get the shock of their life trying to occupy non-tattooed Angel—they react like the kid's filled with holy water, their black-smoke forms boiling off of him like steam, even non-corporeal it's plain to see the demons are in pain just from touching him. Dean wishes his brains were fully engaged instead of waffling between slipping away like fog and going whole-hog into a psychotic break because he'd wonder hard what the fuck was up with _that--_

The demons are getting fed up with the situation and are talking about just taking Dean's eyes, (which are apparently plenty valuable even without the rest of him surrounding them), and calling it a day when a silver tipped arrow bursts out of the throat of the female Horse.  
Dean lifts his head at the sound. His eyes go wide when the other Horse also drops silently to the ground, another silver tipped arrow through the throat. The demons are caught out--it takes them a few seconds to realize that their pets are dead. Dean rolls overtop Angel—whatever the hell is happening, if they want his kid, they'll find out they'll have to go through Dean Winchester. Hopes that it won't come down to that literally happening….

He blankets Angel the best he can with his body and hisses, "Don't move until I know what's going on."

Miracle of miracles, for once the kid does just that, with no argument.

Two dark figures ride down on them, screaming like banshees and hanging low over the neck of their horses. They come straight at the demons and Dean shouts—they're stupidly fearless and about to throw themselves right down the freaks' throats. The demons meet them head on, cocky and confident in their powers, meet the charge head on ready to rip whatever's riding down on them to shreds. The strangers suddenly rise up in the stirrups, bulging wineskins spraying something that have the demons rolling and screaming in the sand—"Saltwater," Angel mutters.

"Or holy water…" Dean ignores Angel's snort and as the riders swoop into the middle of them, iron swords spraying demon blood into the air, he calculates at what point it'll be safe to run. Because Dean figures they while they might be safe from demons at the moment, the possibility that they just fallen into the hands of a different kind of slaver pukes is huge. Though what slaver would go through the incredibly _dangerous_ trouble of fighting demons for their cargo, he can't imagine. Dean casts a quick glance at Angel. Well…Angel was awfully damn pretty. He'd fight a couple of demon troops for him. Maybe…

"Run, you idiots!" A woman's voice rings out and one of the cloaked figure's hood drops back.  
It's a girl—and she's beautiful. Dean forgets everything and gapes at her. The girl—woman--doesn't look like Jo, not at all—she's taller and dark-skinned and her hair is in tight braids close to her skull—but it's the tilt of her chin, the set of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, that bring those memories of Jo rushing in, freezing him in place and he's embarrassed by sudden tears that threaten to fall. He grinds at his eyes with his fist, starts when the other figure reins in behind the woman. "Don’t be so mean, Rio, not like they got caught on purpose—"  
She shakes off the other's hold and yanks at the reins of her horse, rides off. The other cloaked person, a man, says dryly before wheeling to run himself, "Well, you heard her. Run, idiots."

Angel grabs at Dean's arm and they take off after their rescuers. Dean twists as he runs, looks back at the camp. There's black smoke rising off the bodies. It wavers, the columns twisting and weaving in and out of each other before boiling away into the clouds. He can't think about that now—he's entirely concentrated on keeping on his feet, not letting Angel drag him and keeping those horses, or at least their dust trail, in his sights.

They end up at a small encampment, a half dozen or so tents surrounding a firepit. When they come into the center of the camp, heads whip their way.

"Fuck—" Dean heaves a sigh and readies himself, he's going to have to fight and honestly, he's about tapped out, unarmed, and might as well be naked as a newb. He sure was feeling dumb as one. One of the crowd stands up and points. It's the girl, Rio. She stands with her hands spread wide, empty, and calls out, "There they are--them idiots us told you 'bout."

There's some chuckling, some catcalls but mostly good-natured. The crew around the fire resettles, interest pretty much lost since they've been sorted out and the tension level drops.

"You all made good time." It was the boy who'd helped disrupt the demons. He pats Angel's back, hands them canteens heavy with water. He grins at them as they suck down fresh water, stops them before they drink too much. "I'm Shem. Glad you made it."

"Yeah…" Dean says, and hopes the sarcasm shows, "I'm sure. M'Dean, this is Angel. Thanks for the water. And, y'know, the rescue."

The boy—Shem—shrugs and grins a little wider. "Sit," he says. "We're 'bout to eat. Nothin's gonna get past us tonight." He nods, confident, so Dean nudges Angel closer to the fire. They sit in the circle of hooded travelers and get handed bowls of stew and strips of a warm, nutty flavored, flat bread.   
For a while, there's nothing but the murmur of conversation and the sound of people seriously addressing their food. The bread gets passed around again after the stew, this time filled with dried fruit smeared with honey, along with a hot drink Dean realizes with pleasure is just coffee, strong and black. All in all, it's a pretty good end to a day that had started off with a promise to end bloody and horrible.   
Of course, the moment he lets out a relieved sigh is the moment Rio rounds on Dean and Angel both, her face twisted into a snarl.

"You two-- _idiots_ \--how'd you get caught? Don’t you all have charms? Protection? Even the babies know that wanderin' the Alley 'thout protection is like dancin' naked on coals."

Dean takes just a moment too long contemplating the image of her naked and dancing and gets a glare from her and a jab in the kidneys from Angel. She narrows her eyes at the pendant swinging against Dean's chest. "What's that?" she snaps. "Never seen nothing like that before…what's it mean?" She comes closer and runs a finger over it after getting Dean's silent nod of permission. "This here's some kind of…word, a language?"

"Yeah, it's old, older than anything spoke on the planet now, I'd guess. It's to cover our appearance. It changes our faces…" Dean shrugs. "…it's pointless now." He takes it off. "I'm not sure if it'll work for anyone else but—here." He tries to hand it to her and she jumps back, eyes wide.

"Christe," she gasps and only comes closer when neither Angel nor he flinches. "Man—your eyes the same but your face--you look completely different." The murmurs from crew still sitting around the fire change tone, get louder, and when Angel takes his off too and stands next to Dean, there's a distinct "shlip" sound of metal clearing leather—like a sword or knife being drawn out the scabbard.   
"We're not dummies--we know about protection—salt and symbols. We did what we could to keep safe. They had their damn freaks break the salt lines…since when do people work for demons?" Dean growls.

The group still around the fire stare at him only now it's tinged with dawning pity—the kind of looks reserved for hurt puppies and the slightly slow. Angel shuffles closer, leans in toward Dean and says into his ear in a low voice that sends a shiver up Dean's spine, "Since your Brother Prince thought it'd be a good thing. For some people who don't deserve to be called human, it's a reward. For others, it's a punishment. Places like Chronopolis sentences their 'worst' offenders to servitude. It's a prison sentence you don't always survive…"

Dean shudders. Yeah. That's a nasty thought.

Shem turns to Dean. "Why were you all traveling alone? It's too seldom for lone travelers to move in the Alley like that. Were you kicked out of your caravan?"

"No," Dean snaps. "We left on our own. We need to get to Chronopolis and the petition thing wasn't working out for us."

"You're Petitioners?" they're asked, the way other people might have said 'fuckin' idiots'. "Why not just go with the group leaving from Floating City?"

"Because someone brought trouble down on us and we had to leave, that's why," Angel snarls and like they fucking rehearsed it, all of them turn to look at Dean, which pisses him off pretty good.

"Hey! It wasn't my fault. It's not always my fault, you know…."

3

  
It turns out that the camp they've washed up against is a nomadic tribe, one of the tribes Angel had tried to disguise Dean as a member of. The group they've hooked up with is small, maybe forty or fifty people, and not the whole contingent—some of the tribe was traveling with the city, earning pay as security, or traveling with caravans doing the same work—the Edgers were famous for being as tough on demons as the Hunters and a bit more plentiful. Later in the season, Rio explains, they'll meet up at the gathers. What money's been made would be shared out between the tribes---supplies and horses and goats bought, new tents made, it was a time of feasts and meeting with family….

Dean nods. "Kind of like the Turags," he says. He cut his eyes towards Angel. "They lived in a place, a continent called Africa—

"ManDei, I'm not an idiot," Angel huffs, "I know what Africa is. Who doesn't know where the Yellow King's empire is?" The group that's gathered around the fire as they've been talking nods, some making complicated protective signs in the air, some mutter quick snatches of prayer and everyone looks kind of nervous. Dena figures it's another of those Voldermort don’t-say-the-name thing. Angel looks at Dean. "Oh. Sorry. Something else you don’t know. I'll tell you later…."

Dean knows he doesn't mean it like that, but it does make him feel kind of stupid and in turn that makes him need to hide the feeling. He sneers and says, "Sure. Fuck you, by the way." Angel flips him off like he'd been expecting Dean to act like an ass. Well, it's business as usual, Dean thinks--him and Angel have once again fallen off a mountain of shit and into a…another, slightly lower pile of shit. Hopefully. Turns out they were saved by a boy and girl of Summer, a small tribe part of the bigger tribes called the Seasons. Didn't sound like a bad thing…maybe. Maybe their luck was turning up, finally.

They're bedded down at the outer ring of the campsite. Dean gets that—he'd do it too. If something bad comes through, strangers are going to act like an early-warning signal and a distraction in the way of becoming monster kibble. The campsite's got good security though. It's surrounded by iron chains, with sentries at every point the chains intersected. Dean approves. The chains are a good idea, he thinks. The trade off in weight being that not much would disturb the chains, not water or a sly footprint—plus for nomadic tribes like the Seasons, salt was a little too valuable to waste. Iron and herbs and spells kept them safe—that and a kick-ass attitude. Good. They were owed a damn breather. He stares up at the night sky and listens to Angel's soft snuffling and thinks about…nothing and everything. About Angel and how he feels and smells, how soft the scruff trying to be a beard is under his fingertips…Dean falls asleep and dreams about pie and cars and women in white dresses and the sound of wings far away….


	21. JOURNEY TO CHRONOPOLIS

_"We can take you to Chronopolis," Rio says. "We can get you in. But the thing is to try and enter a petition. We got an idea for that."_

1

Dean spends the day following different tribesmen around…they treat him a lot like he's a lovable but clumsy puppy. It's really getting on his nerves, but nowhere near as much as Angel and his new little playmate, Rio. 

Every time Dean turns around there's Angel, all blah-blah and big booming laughs with _Rio—_. He keeps tripping over them, sitting side by side with their heads bent together and their voices low in a way he can't read as anything other than intimate. It's fucking irritating. He's irritated. Seriously irritated and annoyed. Dean kicks a rock across the patch of desert that the nomads keep their horses corralled, and gets a round of dirty looks for it. Fuck. 

Dean stomps off by himself, his chest tight, his head's just beginning to get that pounding feeling in his temples, the sign a mother of all headaches is sneaking up on him. He doesn't get it. The whole fuckin' way they've traveled together, the kid seemed like all he wanted was in Dean's pants and now…Dean stumbles to a stop. Now it looks like Angel's found himself a brand spankin' shiny new friend. Fine. Good for him. Great for him—Dean jams his hands in his pockets and breathes deep for a minute or two. Maybe, he thinks, maybe it isn't even a bad thing. Maybe he should just let the kid go, let him stay here and, what the hell, build a life. It was a good place, decent people. Angel could do well here. These Summer people were a better lot than the Floating City crowd. Angel would be safe here where there were no slaves, no freaks, no fallen angel and no demon fuck buddies ….

~o0o~ 

He drifts aimlessly around the camp until he ends up in front of a colorful tent--stopped by the only other face besides Rio's he recognized.

Shem's crouched outside the tent on a short-legged stool, smoking in a thoughtful way. He looks pleased to see Dean, stands up and flicks the butt away as Dean approaches. He sweeps the door aside, jerks his head towards the opening. "Come on in, bru. You look like you could use a sit down."

Inside the tent is laid a rug, on it a small folding table holding a covered tray and a lamp. Two large, square pillows and two blanket rolls were against the far wall of the tent. Shem drops gracefully onto the closer of the pillows, pulls the tray towards him and lifts its metal lid. Under the lid sits a steaming tea pot and a couple of cups. Dean pulls the free pillow to the other side of the table and sits to face Shem, not bothering to hide his scowl. Shem cocks an eyebrow at him and smiles. Silently pours tea and adds a heavy dollop of dark honey to each cup without asking. He pushes the cup towards Dean, says, "Drink it. You'll like it. Maybe you'll stop frowning up all over like a butt-smacked baby."

Dean scowls even harder. "I got your butt smack," he mutters before gulping tea, just to give his mouth something to do besides growling. Tea's not his drink, what he really wants is a big fuckin' cup of coffee, or a good solid shot of JB—instead, he shrugs and grabs the cup, tosses it down. "Hunh—that's. Pretty good."

"Sure, that's why I drink it. So, you all finished pouting now or you set on keepin' on worryin' whether your Angel-boy is getting his wick wet?"

"No! And really? That's your sister you're talkin' 'bout like that--"

Shem snorts. "Not my blood sister, bru, she's a foster from the tribe of Fall. We're just real close friends." He winks at Dean. "Like, we taught each other everything we know, close."

"Gah, overshare, dude." Dean grimaces. It still sounds like…well, fuck, it sounds like incest to him, it freaks him out and yeah, he totally gets how hypocritical that is. Totally. He crams the thought down deep as he can.

"Rio says Angel say you all really do want to go to Dys." Shem fiddles with his cup and arches an eyebrow at Dean and Dean shrugs. 

"Yeah, I—we want to go to Dys, got some business there," he says and holds out his cup to Shem, who pours more with a smirk.

"So you mind if I'm asking what business? What's so important got you all tricked out in magic stuff and runnin' around like story book heroes? Inheritance? Land issues? Fighting conscription? Why's your local not handlin' it?"

"Wait, what, fighting a what?"

"Conscription," Shem drawls slowly as if Dean was brain-damaged. "Somebody family tagged to be a horse and you fighting it?"

Dean stares at Shem in horror, sinking into the pillow, the tea going solid and sour in his stomach. He's still trying to make sense of the idea when Angel comes tumbling through the tent flap with his shiny new friend Rio. Dean turns to face them, locks eyes with Angel and asks, "Shem, he says, I mean—people're _made_ to let demons ride them?"

Angel looks mildly surprised and then winces a bit, has the good grace to look a little guilty. "Well, yeah—I told you about the lottery, right? Didn't I? Coulda swore I did…." 

Dean comes up off the pillow and stalks over to Angel. He's pissed as hell, frustrated and confused and—and _lost_ damn it. Tired as fuck of trying to keep up all the time, of not knowing shit that can kill—"You guys said it was punishment, like prison—or there were sick fucks out there who chose it. Now you're telling me random people get forced into it?"

Angel winces and tries to back away but Dean's on him, in his space and furious. Angel plants his big hand in the center of Dean's chest, pushes him carefully back, says, "And some fall to it by chance—but it's a chance everyone takes. Everyone in the towns around Chronopolis and Dys have to participate. It's just the way. Only the granddads remember it being any other way," he says and the nomads nod agreement.

"And no one fights back? How the hell can they just let it happen?" Dean pulls his hands over his face and comes close to letting go. What the hell—why'd he go through all the shit he went through if nothing helped? They fucking died—for _this._ They suffered and bled and sacrificed each other over and over for this—so demons could shit on everything they tried to do.

"Well, the petition's one way…" Angel reaches out cautiously, patting Dean's shoulder like he's afraid Dean might bite a chunk out of his hand. "You have to think about the world the way it _is,_ Dean. This is...it's a better way for most of these folks, better than living in fear every day, running all the time and not ever knowing if this is the day you loose—"

"That's crap! What about the mining towns, what about the out towns? They give up people to this fucking lottery? Not living in fear—you mean like the Seasons Tribe? Fuck that. The way these guys are rigged out, they're prepared for the worst and they don't look like they're scared of shit—smart motherfuckers."

Shem laughed, slapped Dean's back. "Right as right, bru, us are born prepared. It's been that way ever since our dads dropped their bikes in this desert, raised the people not to be fools." Shem shrugged. "Better living on the edge out here than licking some demon boot, or bowing to that Mr. Boy King, the monster freak, in Dys." He spit between his fingers and muttered something and Dean's heart swooped in a sick and unpleasant way—what Shem had just done, what he spoke, was a protective charm against ancient and powerful evil—a charm against _Sam,_ the boy Dean had raised and loved.

2

"We can take you to Chronopolis," Rio says. "We can get you in. But the thing is to try and enter a petition. We got an idea for that." She gets an evil grin on her face and Dean knows enough about the way she feels about him to worry about that ….

"We'll take any idea you got. I'd rather enter Dys by petition than try and sneak past their guards. I'm not in the mood to have a demon try and ride me into the ground," Angel says. 

Dean sneaks a look at him and catches the big ass smile he gives Rio. His fingers go up to the tattoo, trace the edge of it without thinking. He still wasn't sure what had happened when the demon tried to get into Angel at their campsite—not sure if it had been a one time thing or not, this immunity the kid seemed to have. Still even if it's not, a little extra protection never hurt anyone—not like there was such a thing as protection overkill.

"I could, I don’t know, maybe we could put the anti-possession tat on you too and protect you…." Dean starts to say, but Angel rears back like a pissed off cat.

"No, no. I don’t want anything like that. I…I don’t want any kind of sign on me. This shit on me is enough," Angel says and jabs at his ribs. "I didn't like the idea of this angel stuff on—in—me and I don’t like the idea of getting something on my skin." He stomps out of the tent.

Rio rolls her eyes, lets out a deeply disgusted sigh. "How can you not get it," she huffs. "Ex-slaves. They none of them want tattoos. First thing most of them do is get the slave mark cut off. Especially if they're the kind of slave he was," she says and her dark eyes full of sympathy.

And it's that sympathy that finally pushes Dean off the edge—he's fuming, all knotted up inside with how easy it was for Angel to tell this girl that he knew--what, all of about five minutes—his whole life history and shit. "Jesus. What the hell—what'd you give him to make him run off at the mouth like that?"

"Oh fuck you, you don't know shit!" Rio snaps. "He needed to get some shit out, and I was there, and willing to listen. Something I guess you don't know about or care about--being sympathetic. Try thinkin' with something besides your dick, once in a while--"

"Oh, is that what the kid's are calling it now, sympathetic? You bi--"

Angel's behind him out of nowhere, like the sneaky son of a bitch he is—fucking feet like a ninja. He shoves Dean—a sharp, hard, smack between the shoulder blades and now Dean's even more pissed off, because that shit hurt and Angel _hit_ him--but when Dean whirls around to let him have it, he takes a step back instead. Kid's got an expression on his face that makes Dean take another step back. He looks like a grizzly with a stomach-ache….

Angel's right in his face, snarls, "Oh fuck no; you don’t get to be pissy because I _talked_ to someone. You, you run hot and cold, you push me away, you pull me in—I need to talk to some one who's not a lokar schizo-ass muhfucker like _you!"_

"What? I talk to you all the time, damn it! And I don't push you away! What about at the camp? You think that didn't mean anything to me—"

"I don't know what it meant. Who can tell what shit means with you, you lokar--"

"CHRISTE! Christe, christe!" Rio screams, her arms flailing in the air. "You're possessed, both of you—by the fucking _stupids!_ I can't be in here with you!" Rio whirls around and stomps out of the tent, elbowing Dean hard in the side as she goes. Shem watches her go with a grin, shrugs at them and follows her out. 

Dean glares after her, swings around to glare at Angel. "Aren't you gonna go after your girlfriend?"

"You are such an asshole. She's not—I'm not---we didn't do anything but talk. Mandei, you pathetic idiot. You're not exactly warm fuzzy guy. And sometimes…" Angel drops his head. "I just want someone to want me because they like me."

"God damn it, I do," Dean shouts, rage and confusion and anger and…fear make his heart slam against his ribs. He wants to shout _don’t leave me, not you too,_ but he just yells louder. "How can you not see that? Don't I show you, like, all the time?"

"Words, De—there's nothing wrong with using them."

Dean drags his hands through his hair and yanks—hard. Fucker's always been able to make him see red; no one gets under his skin like he does, swear to god--"Oh for fucks sake—shut up, Sam!"

They freeze, both of them, both of them wide-eyed and shocked, Dean nauseous with a feeling he can't even name and Angel's face gone tight and white with betrayal. "No, damn, I—I'm sorry, I meant Angel, not Sam, just, you guys sound so much alike sometimes, shit." He knows he's making it worse, but he just can't stop babbling.

Angel backs away from Dean, his voice so low it's a barely heard hiss. "Shut up, shut up--don’t you even say it—" his voice trembles, breaks. Right before stumbling out of the tent he stops. Asks, "Can you promise me you won’t sacrifice me for your Sam?" 

Dean opens his mouth in automatic denial and just--stops. 

No. There really was no way he would, he realizes in a rush of ice crackling across his nerves, boring right down into his bones. Dean realizes that he wouldn't do that to Angel—couldn't. It fills him, this knowing that it would be impossible to sacrifice the boy because Angel means everything to him. Fuck, maybe more than Sam, and that realization breaks his heart, makes him feel like he's betraying that kid who stepped out into the sunshine of a golden afternoon a million years ago and died in a gas station's parking lot. 

Angel of course takes his silence to mean Dean would sell him out in a heartbeat. "I thought so," he says, and lets the flap drop, walks away. 

"No," Dean rasps, the word climbing out of his throat weak and wispy, slicing into him as it goes. He drops his head and bites the inside of his cheek, rips into it. He's not going to fuckin' cry, no way. 

_'I love you more. I need you more.'_

That's in his mind, wanting to come out of his mouth, it's just—he _can't._ Can't say that out loud, not yet—he can't yet hear himself speak the words that will betray Sam.


	22. Journey to Chronopolis (part b)

3 

Angel's quiet after that, not quiet like 'I'm gonna stab you in your sleep' quiet, just…quiet. The kind of quiet Sam would get when Dean did something particularly stupid, the way he'd seem pissed off and sad at the same time and god damn, Dean hated that shit. Still hates that shit, even coming from someone else. From Angel. But he can't bring himself to speak, to explain, so Angel's quiet and Dean's feeling like shit. And a coward. He just stands to the side and watches as Angel spends most of his time with Rio—lots of time spent sitting close together, quietly talking, laughing, or worse, not laughing.

Of course, it's all perfectly fine. Dean takes it as a punishment he deserves. Grits his teeth and prays for strength. He dislikes what it is he's feeling, because it's something he's never felt for anyone but Sam before. Jealousy, pure and simple, braided through with guilt, and it's an ugly, painful, overwhelming emotion. Dean spends a lot of time feeling like he's going to throw up. Well, kill someone first and then throw up. 

And then of course, there's The Plan. The plan Angel and his little friends come up with, one that sucks major balls. It's stupid and reckless and dangerous for Angel, and himself of course, but in the end, he knuckles under. Angel doesn't really give him a choice—besides; he might as well go with the flow. There's this thing in the universe that gets its jollies off at seeing Dean pushed to the edge and then nudged off, and Dean's resigned himself to being the Universe's ass-monkey.

~o0o~

Dean's been standing at the edge of camp for a while, watching the kids run around, screaming and laughing and throwing a lump of stuffed leather Dean figures is supposed to be a ball. He squints against the sunlight. Yeah, kind of a football thing. He smiles--it makes him feel good, seeing kids who feel free enough—safe enough--to act like wild things. It feels like it's been a long time since he's heard laughter like that, pure and uncomplicated and filled with the joy of living. It sends him back to those few days in the mining towns, and the kids he'd seen there—the first really happy kids he'd seen, even before the gas station and the end of the world. The sound's almost enough to silence the other laughter he sometimes hears deep inside, the cold, breathy chuckles that slither between all the good moments that he has. Dean takes a deep breath and lets his muscles go slack, lets memories go and relaxes into the sound of kids living, the comfortable, dry, heat of the day….

Dean jerks so hard he nearly stumbles and curses at the low snicker at his side. Between one breath and the next, Shem's standing there next to him, like a fucking puff of smoke. So fucking quiet and smooth, he got right in under the Winchester radar. Dean hates that like poison. 

"Hello, Traveler, ready to get pretty for me?"

"Jesus. Tell me, ya horse fucker, this is really the best idea you guys could come up with?"

Shem coughs hard into his elbow—Dean's pretty sure that Shem's about a half minute from peeing himself laughing. "Man, you know you _insulting._ Us, we don't be fucking horses; them Out-tribes foreigner assholes do that. So, I guess your boy did explain the thing to you, hanh?" 

"Yes. Freakin' endlessly, like I'm deaf or stupid or something--blah-blah and blah, _Deaaan, are you listening,"_ Dean whines, doing a bitchy imitation of Angel being bitchy. Of course he knows this shit by heart, Angel's repeated it enough damn times Dean can say it in his sleep now. "How the fuckin' hell is this 'bride' thing not like slavery?" he frowns. 

"Oh, it's exactly like slavery, s'why us the Seasons Tribes won't have that kind of shit. Whatdefer," Shem shrugs. "We don’t go around telling the world how to live its business; we just keep it the fuck out of ours."

"Yeah, you guys got hearts of gold," Dean mutters, trying to figure out and failing, just what the hell it was about the fucked-up circus in Sam's head that makes it okay for slavery, for all the flavors of it this world holds. It's like part of the world he rules like a steamroller and the rest of he encourages to go to Hell on its own….

He heads back to the tent, Shem trailing him and going on about god knows what—Dean tuned him out right around the fifth reason why The Tribe of Seasons was better than any other group of people on the face of the planet. Before he knew it he was at the tent and Shem was pulling the flap back, bowing him in with a sarcastic little bend of the waist and twist of the eyebrow. "Now how 'bout you go on and tell Rio trick you out right to be a pretty little thing for me?"

"How about I kick you in the fuckin' nuts and you tell me how you like that?" Dean snarls and Shem grins right back to his molars.

"Aw, come on, there, boy. Good looking guy like me, you know you wanna get smooth and good-smellin' for me. You're a little old, but I can deal with it—"

"You're a _fucking_ jerkoff, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know that," Shem says with a surprising sincerity that startles Dean. The boy shakes his head and there's at least a little apology mixed in with his smirk. "Believe me, bru, this ain't just about entertaining me, this is the easiest way, the fastest. _Best_ way since you don't have no papers of your own." 

Dean reminds himself that the most important thing right now is to get to Sam, to figure out what happened and to fix it, something he's sure he can do. Maybe that makes him crazy—crazier--but there's this thing in his mind, a little voice that tells him Sam needs him to make this right. It's fighting with the voice that tells him that he should protect Angel at all cost, _and_ the voice that tells him that his nightmares about Sam are all true, right down to the tattooing of his name on the blood-wet bones of Dean's arms…he swallows, and turns himself away from those thoughts. 

Before Dean manages to completely shove those thoughts back down where they belong, Rio comes strolling in with a young girl, all made up, red shadowed from brow to eyelids, black kohl rubbed around blue-green eyes. She's dripping with bright jewelry, scarves billowing around her as she walks, a fuck-ton of noise coming from the beads and bracelets and little bells strung all over her and just _—crap._

Dean groans. "Oh fucking hell, look at you. You look like a two dollar whore."

"Fuck you—fuck you a lot, ugly. You wait, you're gonna look like a ugly guy done up like a ugly bitch."

"You get that telling me I'll make an ugly girl isn't much of an insult, right?"

Angel just flips him off and drops onto a cushion—trips actually; falling in a jangle of brass and silver and a chain-reaction flutter of material. 

Rio rolls her eyes and sighs. "Dei. Shem'll be carrying the papers—your papers—of sale and that's all the docs you're gonna need." She makes a star-burst movement with her fingers. "Blam—you're officially not people now. You don't speak—not once, not to no one. You don't look no one in the eye. You be heads down and mouth shut and take tiny steps behind him when you walk. Now, I know that's gonna be some hard for one of you, who's a hard-headed, clot-brained, rough-neck, loud-mouth fool—"

Angel snorts a laugh into his hand and Dean mutters, "Shut the fuck up—" but inside he's beaming because the look Angel gives him says that Dean's not completely an unpleasant smear on the road of his life. "Can't be talking about me, 'cause that doesn't sound a bit like me at all," and smirks at Angel and Angel unbends enough to smile at him….

Rio turns to a kid who's almost been hidden behind her and the tower of bags in his arms; he drops them with a grateful sigh on the ground when she gives him a sign and takes off fast. She turns her attention to Dean. "I brought some jewelry and scarves and stuff for you, too," she says. "Lots of scarves. You all are okay but not even ugly girl pretty. No offense." 

She smirks at Dean and cuts her eyes at Angel. Angel's got one of the filmy scarves wrapped around one hand, pulling it through his fingers and looking at Dean in a way that makes Dean…uneasy. And a little turned on. Angel snorts, and says to Rio. "Dona, it's okay, no offense taken at all."

Rio's cheeks turn a lovely red, and if it was any other person Dean would have called the expression she turns on Angel a simper, but of course she slugs Angel in the arm anyway, hard enough to stagger him. Shem just rolls his eyes at Dean. "Women," he says and Dean nods like he knows what the boy is talking about.

~o0o~ 

Dean slaps makeup on without really thinking about it. It's not like he's a stranger to the stuff--he's had to wear makeup before. They'd used to do it occasionally on a hunt, or as a cover of sorts, even though he'd looked pretty hideous with it once he got out of his teens and those kinds of disguises got hard to pull off. He looks Angel over from the corner of his eye, the kid's makeup is perfect and no matter what Dean might have inferred about how he looked as a girl the truth was, if Dean had come across Angel all tricked out like that some night in some dark bar, he'd have gone for him, happily. And wouldn't have known any better until he got the kid's clothes off. Dean mentally shrugged. Not that something like surprise dick would have stopped him….

He sweeps him with his eyes again and idly wonders if Angel's wearing satin undies under his robes, and winces. Curses himself and his stupid-ass dick for going there. 

It's like Angel can read his damn mind. He jerks his chin at Dean and glares—his eyes are twin pissed off lasers burning into Dean's. "They taught us a lot of things back when I had no choice but to learn," he says, sharp and defensive.

Great—Dean's just been called on perving over the fact that Angel had had to know how to dress like this, probably for some fat old pervert that wanted a little girl with a dick…his stomach lurches and he drops his eyes to his feet. Dean feels like shit again. Angel's real fuckin' good at that, making Dean feel lower than a worm. 

Until a big warm hand tilts his chin up. Angel says, low enough that only Dean can hear, "Come on, you. Let me do your makeup. Nobody who's not a blind, eighty year old whore wears big dots of red on their cheeks like that."

Dean gets it for what it is—an olive branch. He's so damn grateful Angel's not beating him with it he can't help but grin, the affection tucked into Angel's words makes his whole chest light up and the tight string between his shoulder blades loosens. He pointedly ignores the huffy snort he hears from Rio. Jealous bitch.

~o0o~ 

He remembers those words when they take their leave of the camp, and Rio and Angel hang off each other like long lost lovers parting again. Or maybe just long lost siblings…Dean hates that Rio twists him up like that.

Right before he climbs into the cart, Rio grabs his arm. "You're so stupid, Shit-For-Brains. And you'll probably get yourself killed for it. And it makes my stomach twist in knots thinkin' you're gonna do the same thing to Angel and he don’t deserve that but he loves you, so."

Dean's whole self jerks when she says that, the words just flood him like a fire. He almost misses what she says next. "Please just look out for him. Whatever you think you're going to get done in the city, it's not for no good. Just…please. Let him go when you get there. Don't drag him down with you." 

It's obvious the please just about gutted the girl, and Dean is impressed with how much she cares about Angel and how much it killed her to beg Dean…but Dean doesn't really care all that much. Angel is his and he'll take care of him, without Rio butting in. 

Her eyes are all over his face before the slightly hopeful, slightly pleading expression on her's twists. Her eyes harden into the obsidian chips he recognizes—she nods. "Yeah. Figured as much," but doesn’t say anything else and Dean feels the barest lick of…shame. Just a whiff, before he turns away.

Shem bangs the side of the cart and yells, "Come on, you--we got miles to burn here. No matter what she's sayin', you a good lookin' woman. Now shake it."

Angel grins at Dean, snickers at how he struggles to climb into the cart, hampered by the stupid robes and scarves and little jingly damn bells on everything. "He's right De, you are. See, it's all in knowing what you're doin'—" he shimmies in a way that's just plain…disturbing. "Gotta know how to work it, s'all."

Dean glares at Angel but his heart's not in it—Rio's words are on repeat in his head. He's so deep into thinking about it he almost misses when the cart pulls off, trailed by a few of the tribesmen riding shotgun at the sides of the cart. They act like it's no big deal to set out across the no-man's land between the lands of the Seasons and Chronopolis—the Alley. Dean notices the way they're sigiled up and covered with charms and whatnot and figures maybe it's not. These Edgers look totally confident in themselves—they're bad asses, on a John Winchester level, and he has to admit, he's felt most comfortable with these people. Even if some of them kind of looked at him like he was someone's barely housebroken puppy…like that wasn't a look he'd gotten all his life. What the hell, they didn't know him. No one really did….

The cart bumps and sways away like a horrible carnival ride and Angel jerks back and forth cursing under his breath. Dean looks back over his shoulder, can still see the fires of the camp and Rio, saddled up but not moving. Watching them leave. She's still there, watching, when the trail dips away and Dean loses sight of her.

~o0o~ 

They spend a day on the trail; some barely there sketch of a path that Dean can't really make out. Every few miles are marked by a tall, black pole with a little black box perched at the top. He narrows his eyes at it…the box at the top of the pole looks familiar, reminds him of something…an ice-cold rill streaks down his back when he looks up, catches a glimpse of color. His sun-blizted eyes tell him it's blue but when he blinks he gets little afterimages of blue flashes, so he can't be sure if he really saw anything. All he's really sure of is that those poles make his gut roll. He kind of hates them, but no one else shows interest so he lets it go, tries to settle again. At his side, Angel shifts, and sighs like he's deflating. "What?"

Angel sighs again and says, "So. Here we are, getting close to your goal. I gotta point out, you haven't told me what your plan is once we get—if we get—inside. Just getting in the city doesn't mean much. You've still got to get to the petition court. Gotta have a reason to speak."

"My plan…my plan is to get in front of Sam. Figured he'd want to see me. From there, I find out who he is. Kill him if I have to."

"That's your _plan?"_ Angel snorts, high, sharp and bitter. "Hell of a plan. First of all, he can't be killed. Second, his bodyguards will turn you into paste before the thought crosses your mind. Don't you _know_ who you're dealing with?"

"My brother. Who loves me."

"Oh sure, that one, the brother—who did something so fucked up to you that you landed in our town—a stinking, homeless, wetbrain who still doesn't really know where he is or when. Fucked you up so bad that every time we talk about him you cry and I'm not thinking it's from being sad, bru. That brother? He'll kill you before you get a chance to breathe his name."

Dean shook his head. "No. If there's anything I know, it's that he won't kill me. I'll make it in alive; I'll find a way to Sam, somehow." He grabs Angel, all the stupid bracelets and charms and friggin' stupid little bells chiming as he locks his fingers around the kid's wrist. He squeezes until the bones shift under his grip. "Not for the reason you think. Not for that—it's different now. That Dean is gone and dead. This one, the one you made, all he wants is to lay that shit to rest, you understand? I promise you, that's the only reason."

Angel gives Dean a look that plainly says he wants to believe but he can't. Dean wishes he had some way of telling Angel, assuring him, prove to the kid that…he's everything to Dean. Sam was the old world, and Angel's the new world. 

But he owes it to Sam, owes it to the kid he made that long, long, long ago promise to. This time, if he has to, he's going to make good on it.


	23. Journey To Chronopolis (part c)

4

The dirt tracks slowly become a road, and the road gets wider, trees start to crop up alongside it here and there, green fields full of some plant Dean can't identify—broccoli, Brussels sprouts, some bumpy, disgusting green thing that Sam was always after him to eat. Farms are everywhere, spreading out around the wall, and he wonders why the farmland's not behind the wall too. Some sort of weird, giant silver ladders, tall and spindly like they're on stilts, spray water over the fields—a type of irrigation system that he's never seen before. The sun catches the water and makes rainbows but that just kind of pings him in an unsettling way…the rainbows, the arcs of water showering the earth….

Outside of the fields, there's nothing else on the road, no houses, no little outlying buildings, no suburbs. When they get to the point he can just start to make out the wall, the kind of places he's been expecting start to pop up. The roadside becomes dotted with food carts, lean-to's, which give way to canvas tents and food stands and when they're at last in full sight of the wall, tents and stands become cafés, hostels, markets. The landscape becomes less Mad Max sci-fi and more regular urban blight.

~o0o~ 

The Edgers take the little bridal party right to the gates of Chronopolis, mixing in with the other petitioners. The buildings and business outside of Chronopolis might be ugly, crowded and squat but the wall itself puts Dean in mind of a castle's walls with the arches and turrets breaking up the long length of it. No cleared area or moat outlines the wall, the buildings lean right up against them and make him think that maybe the wall aren't for keeping things out.

In between the flag topped turrets studding the wall huge, arched openings are set at seemingly random points, high above the ground. In fact, much too high for foot traffic access, and way too wide to be windows. It's weird. He wonders what the hell they're for…decoration? All around the openings, the stone is overlaid with what looks like colorful mosaics, like he'd seen in one particular old church Dad had dragged him to in his endless pursuit of the thing that had ended up destroying them all anyway—Dean shakes his head, hard. Thoughts like that are less than useless—

He looks up to see something like a glass bubble peeking over the top of the wall, organic-looking metal struts holding the glass in place. Flags whip in the breeze and the breeze chases the sound of Chronopolis to them…it sounds like a city. It's the only word he has to describe it. Loud, noisy… _familiar._ More like the world he'd grown up in, in sound if not in looks.  
All around them, it was colorful, active; it was nothing like he'd imagined. He'd been picturing a place like the mining towns only maybe bigger, busier. Chronopolis looks like Newark had fucked a Disney palace and this was its bastard child. 

The rest of the tribe peels off when they get to the gates, heading for one of the dozen or so places to bunk for a night. Shem snags a pack off the back of cart, then helps Dean and Angel down to the ground before the cart heads off with the rest. 

"Try and walk a little less like a would-be killer, will you? You all the most ungainly brides ever," he complains to Dean and Dean kicks him in the ankle. 

"Dude, bru, I'm not a damn girl—"

"Ow, shit—and shhh," Shem hisses, "Act like…Nomine Dei, try to act like somethin' to fuck, not fight off. We got to get you two through the gates, first."

~o0o~ 

The petition moves slowly through a large set of gates, armed and uniformed troops giving them a lazy once-over as they move by. They're bored; their stance is too casual by far. It's obvious that they think of themselves as window-dressing more than anything else—more than likely they've never raised their weapons in a defensive way. Dean takes it all in, the way the uniforms bullshit with each other, yawn, pick at their collars and cuffs and don't ever really see the people that aren't in uniform. The crowd keeps moving forward in quiet orderly lines, clumped into groups mostly, some alone. The guards herd them all into the proper places, never raising their voices. No one complains, no one tries to jump a line, or drop out…they don’t speak outside of their groups, they look at no one outside of their groups.

A line of people in dark gray pajamas, hooked together at the ankles and strung to a long chain, shuffles past them, the lines of their body advertizing defeat. Angel whispers, "Conscripts. Prisoners." Dean nods his understanding and watches them go, something about the muffled click of the chain, the steady 'shuff, shuff' their feet make as they go by makes his gut lurch. For a split second he's terribly, terribly afraid and it takes a few breaths to make the fear fade. 

They're passing into the last set of gates, and just before they step out beyond the walls, Dean looks up. The inner gates have ceilings like cathedrals. Back when he still traveled with Dad, in that time right after Sam fucked off on his search for normal, he'd been in a few old stone churches, helping his dad look for books, documents, or whatever information they could get from some of those old-fashioned priests. It was amazing what those old guys knew. Dad would get gallons of holy water from those places, snatches of lore, and no fucking around, _deadly_ ass exorcisms.

In some ways Dean liked being in those old churches, though they'd also scared him. He'd felt the weight of decades—all that prayer, all that yearning for something more, their vaulted ceilings and stone arches felt like they were filled to bursting with it. Always made him feel kind of small, in awe of heavy, blocky stone transformed into something beautiful, something graceful. Here in the gateway he has that feeling again, under the huge wings carved out of black granite laced together across the ceiling, animals and faces and things he doesn't recognize woven through the worked stone. It's beautiful and frightening. Dean tries to keep one eye on the ceiling and the other on Angel's back and almost misses the moment they pass through into Chronopolis. Dean drops his eyes, looks straight ahead and—

"Holy flying fuck…"

Through one of those too wide, too high arches, comes flying something that looks like an ornithopter but outfitted with an engine, trailing puffs of smoke as it flicks past. 

"Okay," Dean mutters and blinks hard. They're inside what looks like a train station built by someone who'd never actually _seen_ a real train station. Half the colored glass roof is cut away to the clear blue sky, giving full view to a whole flight of those smoke-belching ornithopters, flittering away beneath the big, round belly of a dirigible—like dolphins swimming guard with a whale—

It's loud; the air vibrates with the constant hiss of expelled steam, a PA system shouting what sounds like gibberish non-stop, the screech of steel wheels against steel rails, and people, hundreds of people talking, shouting to each other over the din. Dean shivers, pulls the nearly useless robes and scarves around him. Cold, cold and hollow and the filtered light makes the world look like it's underwater, reminding him of that lake lifetimes ago where Sam and he fought a killer ghost boy.

Angel notices Dean slow down and sidles closer to him, not quite touching, just being there, offering support if Dean wants to take it. The warmth Angel gives, the good warm smell of him, helps to ground Dean. He takes a deep breath, and keeps on moving. Angel makes a small approving sound that, if Dean wasn't so oddly shaken by the city, he'd kick Angel in the nads for.

"Shake it, pretty," Shem smirks, and they filter into the appropriate line. There are a couple other figures covered from head to toe in material, their handlers send speculative looks towards Shem. Everywhere Dean looks, there's machinery that looks oddly familiar but slightly skewed. Overhead, clinging to the underside of the glass roof, a monorail runs, little cars hanging from the rail like tricked out shoeboxes. Apart from the huge trains lumbering out of the station on multiple tracks, there's a thin rail line running right over the station's granite floor, the slim tracks sunk into the granite and strangely beautiful, delicate brass and wooden cars sitting upright and sailing on the steel length of it. Dean keeps blinking, shakes his head once or twice. The fucking place looks like maybe a crazy Disney cousin did design it, like a _seriously_ schized-out Disney….

There are lines leading up to checkpoints, chock full of more uniformed mooks separating people into the different lines. The chain-gang of demon fodder gets loaded on some wagon/bus hybrid, Dean jerks when he realizes the thing is steam driven too. "Fuck me..."

Every mook they've seen so far is tricked out in the same dark grey, stiff blue collared uniform. They look a bit like cadets or something, except all heavily armed and sporting odd leather caps topped with goggles. They remind him of something, something right on the edge of his brain…Dean narrows his eyes at them, racks his brain and then—he gets it. Fucking Flying Ace Snoopy. He stifles a giggle, and Angel stares at him. "Behave," he hisses and Dean rolls his eyes. 

"Bitch…" he mutters but his heart's not in it. There's too much happening, too much. 

"Okay, we're comin' to a checkpoint. Remember, keep your eyes down, don’t speak unless I tell you, right?"

"Yes, fuckin' yes," Dean mutters and he's surprised when instead of giving him shit, Angel snorts and rolls his eyes at Shem, before winking at Dean, hazel eyes all he can see of the kid. For a hot crazy minute, all Dean wants to do is kiss Angel stupid.

~o0o~ 

They stop in front of a series of long counters, manned by more guards. In this section, the uniforms are black with green collars, and every guard is busy, shifting paper, handling petitioners, tending to mysterious machines that do…something. Little lights blink, and dials whir and the uniforms tap buttons and something happens though Dean's damned if he can figure out what. Every few minutes the machines stop blinking and whirring. Instead, they click, beep, and spit out streamers of paper that seem to feed directly into wastebaskets. Dean shrugs. Government work. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There's a constant flickering of light at the corner of Dean's eye, and that's when he notices the uniforms are taking pictures at the end of the run of counters. 

"Just travelers getting temp ID," Shem explains. "They won't take your picture but you'll get an ID and a scan, supposed to be once you're sold, your owner—I mean spouse, send the ID to back—but don't worry about that shit. Scan's comin' up, ain't gotta worry 'bout that neither. I don't think…" and contrary to what he tells Dean, Shem looks plenty worried.  
 _Fuck…_ Dean tries hard to keep his head down and not just sprint for some exit some where. What happens if the scan reveals what they're not? How the hell do they get out—he doesn't even have a penknife thanks to Angel's paranoia and he really wants to ask Angel how he was liking that instance on being unarmed _now._ But they keep moving forward and it's not long before they're in front of a U shaped section of the counter and the guard on duty there. He's holding a wand and he gestures them forward.

"We got papers, we're—" Shem starts, but the mook shakes his head, he doesn't give a shit, it's not his job to care. He sweeps them with the wand, hesitates over them. "Wait here." Dean starts cursing—this is it, fuckin' shit has hit the fan now. He's seen they're not brides, he's going to call up more uniforms and they're going to be in deep, _deep_ shit—

The guard walks back behind the counter, leans over one of the machines, frowning as he presses levers and twists dials and the thing blinks and whirs and spits out paper and it must mean something to the mook, he turns away and picks up an old-fashioned looking phone with a rotary dial. Dean blinks at it—it looks like a 1940s relic but under the dial, a tiny TV screen's attached to it…"fucking weird."

"Is everything okay? Why'd he stop?" Angel asks Shem, who frowns a little but shrugs, crosses his arms. 

"Eh. I don't think it's anything important. They stop folks all the time. If it was bad, they'da taken us out at the head of the line." Dean eyes him. _Right._

An elegant woman glides into view, patting the loops of jet black hair coiled on the back of her neck into place. She's wearing a long skirted version of the mook uniform; the overcoat is nearly as long as the skirt and her hand floats from the coils of her hair to the brass badge pinned under the collar. Serious almond eyes sweep them as she comes to a stop. Just the way she angles her head shouts "Big Boss In Charge." It's kind of hot, Dean thinks. Looks her over carefully—oh yeah, she's definitely hot. Angel digs a sharp elbow into his ribs and sets off an avalanche of jingling and clicking as the little bells and bracelets chime; Dean doesn't even have to see it to know that Angel's face is stuck in bitch-mode. 

"You're a woman, remember?" There's a definite edge to his whispered remark.

"So?" Dean hisses, and gets a sandal ground into his toes. Bites down the curses that want to burst out.

"Well, well, today is a busy bride day. It's been a while since we've had so many, three separate groups today…the Market is going to be quite interesting this week." She looks Shem's papers over, hmming and tsking, before looking at the machine her subordinate had fluttered over. She takes a minute or two looking at something a faint frown on her face, lifts an eyebrow and purses her lips before smiling. "Ah," she says, as she spins dials and taps buttons. "I see now. There was an error in the machine. Seems my assistant here is not as skilled at calibrating it as he should be. You're fine," she says and Dean exhales a relieved breath. Their IDs are created, and their papers handed back, and the woman wishes Dean and Angel a happy, productive life with their 'spouses'. Dean glares until Angel jabs him in the ribs. Again.

~o0o~ 

They board one of the little transport cars, and it swings into action, clanking and moaning and spitting steam--it makes Dean long for the Impala like a lost lover. Once underway, the ride is actually pretty smooth and against his will, Dean ends up looking around wide-eyed. Feels a bit like a tourist, instead of an idiot on his way to almost certain Very Bad Times. The cars sway and hiss to a distant part of the station. There they step out, shuffling, heads down, taking annoyingly mincing steps like the shy country girls they're supposed to be. Shem stops them in front of a thin metal pylon that has a glass booth set at its base. "Get in," he says.

Dean looks up at the thread of metal spinning upwards, right out of the open part of the roof, where it takes a twist and soars onward. The glass booth shivers as further along the line, other glass booths take on people and rise straight up like a shot and then follow the twist of metal ribbon like a fucking amusement park ride. Dean plants his feet. God damn it, he's faced down werewolves and vamps and—and-- all manner of fucking supernatural freaks, he's no coward—but only an idiot would risk this glass death trap. 

Angel loops his arm around Dean's waist like a school girl, and takes his hand. It appears to be a comforting gesture but it's only by sheer force of will the Dean doesn't yell—the fuckin' kid is grinding his hand bones to powder. "Don't be afraid, sister," Angel does a pretty good job of sounding like a girl. He leans closer, makes it look like he's kissing Dean's cheek and hisses, "Get the fuck in the car before I snap your stupid hand off."

Shem makes a show of patting Dean on the back. "Leave 'em be," he whispers, "Your boy's country bumpkin perfect. This here gawking and whatnot just what everyone expects."

And yeah, there were looks of impatience and sneers and outright laughter at his expense—what can he do? Dean stomps into the car, plasters himself against a wall and glares best he can through the stupid veils. Angel loops an arm through his but probably to stop Dean clocking any of the sneering passengers.

"Backwater savages…should keep that trash in the sticks where it belongs." A man glares at them, and waits for the other man he's with to agree. That one looks so fucking unimpressed with Douche Nozzle and it's easy to see why, he's weighted down with boxes and bags hung from his person like he's a fucking Christmas tree and the dull eyes he turns on Dean are so full of "I don't give a fuck' and 'I have nothing in me to give.' There are silvery pale stripes on most of the guy's visible skin but around his neck is a thick, raised red line.

Slave. Slavery. Real, ugly, _slavery._ Dean stares, as appalled with Douche Nozzle as the asshole was with him. The chill wave that swept him was suddenly a surge of hot, vibrating, rage—this whole fucked up thing finally spilling over and he takes a step towards Douche, opens his mouth and a sharp pain shocks up his arm— _What the fuck—?_

Angel lets go of the throbbing bit of Dean's skin and whispers, "Please, ManDei, please behave yourself. I can feel you swelling up like a pissed off cat."

"Yeah, whatever, shut up…" Once they settle for the night, Dean swears he's gonna cut the kid's fucking nails…or maybe just break his fingers. He manfully restrains himself from rubbing his tortured flesh. "Bitch. Stop abusing me."

They pull to a stop on a platform made of spun wrought-iron. "Get off, no fuckin' 'round," Shem says. 

"Hu--nunh?"Dean stutters as Angel pushes him off the car—he'd been so pissed off and so busy glaring daggers at Douche Nozzle, he'd missed the whole ride. He counted that as a mother-fucking win and elbowed Angel—he didn't need to be coaxed off that flying glass coffin.

~o0o~ 

There are a few blocks of apartments set aside for petitioners, generously provided at low cost by the city of the Citizen King, and they make their way to one of the buildings. There are several ways to get an apartment free, Shem explains, but none of them are about to spend even a single evening as a horse, or give up any of their blood, for god's sake. Or volunteer the fact that under the veils and without their charms both Angel and Dean have eyes of a greenish hue that is popular in Dys and guaranteed to grant certain privileges that no one not raised in the cities is stupid enough to think ends in a good way.

The apartment turns out to be surprisingly clean. In fact, it's even comfortable. There's a bath and kitchen, there's a sitting room done up in welcoming colors and cozy furniture, and a bedroom just as nicely outfitted. But what's most important to Dean, it has plumbing—plus lots and lots of hot water, and a shower big enough for him to spread his arms, and not have to duck down to get his head wet. That makes it the fucking Marriot as far as Dean's concerned. He's been dying for a hot fucking shower and a real mattress. But more than that—he frantically sheds everything of the bridal robes along with the little fucking bells ands bracelets. They hit the floor, Angel's too, as he gets with the program. In minutes they're both standing in a snowdrift of fabric and jewelry. Shem tosses their bag at Dean, and Dean finds their stuff in it. "Fuck yeah. You're a good man, Shem."

"I know," he smirks. 

Dean and Angel are scrubbed make-up free and comfortably dressed. Dean's just in a pair of jeans, Angel'd laid a shirt out for him but Dean's reluctant to put it on—it feels like he's been covered forever, drowning in those fucking robes and crap and for a few minutes all he wants to feel against his skin is air. He wants to stretch his bare, unencumbered toes in the soft carpet, he wants to think about nothing and he wants…hoping against hope, he looks in the kitchen's tiny fridge.

"Fuck yes, fuck me, this is—this is perfect." He stands up with two dark glass bottles clutched in his hand. "Real beer. In a bottle. It feels like…" Forever since the Outlands and their close similarity to what he'd lost. Ever since, he's felt like he's been in a not very nice dream—except for Angel. He's been the good part of everything. He hands Angel one bottle and smiles at him. "Hope it's half decent," he says, and wishes they were alone. Angel looks up at him, his eyes dark, and his smile says he wants the same thing….

Shem blurts out a little insinuating dry cough and smirks when they turn to him with identical frowns. He says, "Well, we're going to need some food with that. We not going out now, so we'll get some off the vendors. Should be some 'round shortly--they go from floor to floor selling small hots," he explains at Dean's look, "You know…soup pots, hot hand meals…" he sighs. "Explain," he tells Angel. 

Angel shrugs. "I…pretty much what he said."

Dean cocks an eyebrow. "You mean like hotdog vendors going floor to floor?"

"Yee-ess…?"

"Hunh." Dean thinks that's a damn good idea and Angel laughs at the pleased expression on his face. He moves to stand closer to Dean and they lean back against the kitchenette's counter, drinking, shoulders brushing with each move. Dean feels his cheeks go warm and stifles a fucking giggle from out of nowhere. Any second now, he's going to ask to braid Angel's hair. Or stab himself in the eye.

"We'll bunk down here, and in the morning, I guess you all take off. And speaking of food, I think we want better than soup pots—" Shem gets up, says, "I'll be back in say…an hour?" Gives Dean a wink and leaves the apartment.

It gets weird in a good way the second Shem leaves—Angel shocks the hell out of Dean by leaping on him and dragging him to the floor, all arms and legs and hot wet mouth. He's saying something, slurring it into his skin, his mouth—"Fuck, De, you've got me twisted, fucked up. I don’t know how we're going to—we'll never. We'll never, Dei—"

"Not true, when this is over, we'll make it, make a life, promise, you and me. It's going to be fixed, we'll fix him, and we'll live. We'll be happy. We will."

Angel moans, his hands practically wringing the skin from Dean's biceps, his chin and hips and knees knocking against Dean's, knocking Dean into the cabinets and against the floor, uncoordinated, a wild, desperate beat—it hurts but it feels good, too—no, it's amazing. Angel calms enough to slither his way up Dean's body, biting at Dean's neck, sets teeth in his earlobe and Dean shudders. "De, Dean, you really believe that—Dei, you're such a fuckin' idiot—"

"Thanks, you sweet talking son of a bitch."

Angel snorts a laugh into Dean's throat, licks over his Adam's apple and again when Dean's spine turns liquid and his hips take over. Dean's pushing into Angel, pretty much wrecking himself with how bad he wants the kid, and it's only slowly that he realizes he's been hitching himself across the floor by his elbows—and they hurt. 

"Okay, that's it, can't do this." He pulls Angel to his feet. "C'mon, rug burn sucks, dude."

He urges Angel into the bedroom with little nudges of his hips, little kisses to his jaw and lips, teasing licks and nips that have them steadily moving backwards, surprisingly in sync considering how tall Angel's gone and got himself, all stupidly long steps—he catches Angel in his arms and twists, falls backwards, lands on the bed with the boy clutched in his arms, a perfectweight against his chest. "God, a real bed, fucking real pillows— _sheets_ \--this is gonna be so good, fuck…" He wiggles his ass back into the soft clutch of the bed and has to get naked right the fuck now, spread himself and his boy across the clean, smooth cotton….

"Yeah, okay," Angel laughs softly and kisses Dean, soft and sweet at first and then slowly deeper with intent. Dean groans, his dick jerking to full, bit by bit, kiss by kiss. He grabs Angel's ass and pulls him in, grinds against him. Angel's mouth opens on a gasp so of course Dean dives in; it's a fucking invitation, and in between kisses he asks Angel, begs him, "Can I, can I fuck you, do you wanna—?"

"Nah, I'm gonna get a shower, catch some sleep—been a long couple of days—"

"What? What—?"

"Christe, De, you couldn't be easier if you tried."

"Well, sorry. I don't have the blood to spare to work my brain, it's doing better things right now."

Angel screws himself down against Dean's dick. "Yeah, fuck, it really is, Mandei," he laughs, breathless and high, happy and it's as much that tone in Angel's voice, the big grin punctuated by ridiculous dimples, that makes Dean moan as it is the rock hard burning length of him trying to brand itself into Dean's thigh. 

"Pants off now?" He manages in between kisses and desperate little breaths.

"Yeah. Yeah, Shem knows, when he sees the door closed he won't break in. I don't think..."

"Like I give a shit," Dean mutters and they help each other get their jeans off—Dean's not sure but he thinks even starting from mostly naked, it might be the fastest getting starkers of his entire life, except maybe—he wrenches that thought out of his brain and concentrates on Angel, the rise if his ribs, the way his dick sways when he drops his pants, slim and long and elegant and so, so, hard. Dean has to wipe his mouth, it's suddenly that wet. He shivers, thinking how badly he wants his mouth on him, to taste and feel him, to have all that inside him. "Angel."

Angel's standing at the foot of the bed, eyes locked on Dean's crotch, staring like they've got all the time in the world, eyes so fucking hot that Dean gets very much harder and incredibly self-conscious. He knows he's no porn star, but he's some above average, okay? He's not as big as Angel—damn, and how is that fair?—but he's never had complaints—"Hey, with the staring, you're creepin' me out."

"But I can't help it, you're fucking beautiful," Angel breathes, "Your dick is so pretty…let me…" he drops to his knees and licks Dean from root to tip, tongue wide and sloppy and wet. Dean likes the way Angel is on him, it feels so new and unskilled, like he's never done anything before, a quick fantasy Dean indulges in until Angel sighs and takes him right into his throat like it's nothing. 

"Fuck! Holy—holy shi—"

Angel slides his tongue along the length of him, humming and swallowing and it's fucking Dean up, it's so wet and the way it tightens and loosens and it's driving Dean crazy. "You gotta stop if you want me to fuck you, I—Angel, damn, don’t, I wanna fuck you, please."

Angel moans, swallows and pulls off slow, tongue dancing over his shaft as he does, kisses the tip when he's finally off and drills the point of his tongue into Dean's slit, moans and licks and sucks. Dean's about ot shove him off or come—not sure what's going to happen first, when Angel relents and lets him go. 

"Damn, you taste so good, can't get enough," he rasps, voice wrecked, his hand shakes when he wipes his mouth and he laughs softly. 

The thought that Angel sounds like that because of him, his dick…the shock of arousal hits him like a punch to the gut—he has to wrap his fingers around the base of his dick, tight, and think hard about ghouls and wendigo lunch and grandparent sex….

Angel crawls up on the bed and over Dean, his thighs bracketing Dean's. Dean wets his fingers until they drip and rubs the pad of his finger over Angel's hole. Concentrates on the way the tight muscle softens as he circles it, letting him rock the tip of his finger in, out. Angel opens for him, and his finger sinks in to a velvet heat. He sinks another in, spreads them, the silky hot give and clutch enough to get his breath stuttering. Angel rides them sure and steady, long lashes fluttering, lips opening. He keeps trying to touch his dick, but Dean won't let him, smoothly moving his hand away whenever he tries. Smirks when Angel's soft, punched out little gasps turn into moans and moans slide into cursing and begging and rise to demanding, loud and in no uncertain terms, "Fuck me!"

"Yeah, yeah, okay…" Dean works up as much saliva as he can and rubs it over his dick, trying to get it was wet as possible. Hopes it'll be enough and lines his dick up with Angel's hole because at this point, sad to say, he just really, really, _really_ wants to get off. Feels he's got to warn Angel, kind of. "Okay, it's going to hurt." 

Angel shakes his head. "Had worse, I can take it, just—" before Dean can move, Angel practically slams himself down on Dean and Dean spits out a hoarse shout in shock. "Move," Angel gasps, "move," pounding Dean's chest. 

"But I'll hurt you without lube," he says, like he had any intention of not moving, just maybe…not as fast as Angel wants it….

"Are you kidding? You're not going to last long enough for it to hurt," Angel says it with a superior little smirk, but the fucker's right. There's no fucking way he's lasting, it was almost game over at Angel's words. Orgasm's riding up his spine like lightning on a wire, that jerk-tug-need to come making him growl, grab Angel by the scruff of his neck and yank him down to claim that pink cupid's bow and bite down.

Angel gives a muffled shout and shocks Dean by shooting all over his belly and chest, the surprised, lust-confused face Angel makes knocks the last shreds of Dean's own control to bits. It's hotter and slicker and so damn good when he sliding through his come, fucking up into Angel harder and faster now that the way is slicked, chasing ecstasy, riding that last good wave to the end, until he finally drops flat on the bed, limp and boneless against the sheets, and kindly lets Angel droop over him. "Fuuu--ck. I broke myself—your fault," he complains and snorts when Angel tries to punch him. 

"Ungrateful old man…but s'good, right?"

"Fuckin' yes, it was good." Dean takes a moment to love it, revel in it—enjoying the afterglow like he hasn't in he can't remember when, before finally smacking Angel on the ass and pulling out—carefully—to roll him to the bed. He ignores the kid's outraged squawk. "Ech. C'mon—shower, dress before Shem comes back. Fuck, we never have enough time, do we?" 

Angel shakes his head. "What are we really doing here? What's going to happen tomorrow, or when He sees you? What makes you think we survive this?"

"Dude, bru, what the hell—don't fuck this up. Don’t—"

"Dean. You don’t have a fucking dream of a beginning of a plan, let alone an actual plan."

"Hey. There'll be a way, okay? All we gotta do is get into one of those court things Sam sits in on. And when he sees me, he'll want me close. And when I get close…" Dean shrugs. "We'll make up, hug it out, whatever. Everything's going to be okay." He smiles at Angel, while a part of him screams that no way was it going to be okay. That he wasn't going to deal with his brother, he was going to deal with Sam Winchester, the Boy King of everything who as far as Dean could tell, was fifty fucking cards short of a full deck.

Angel gets up, wraps one of the sheets around himself and walks out onto the apartment's tiny balcony. There's still enough light left to see people and cars moving in the street, life happening. Normal, as far as normal is for these people. As if to point up the fallacy of his thinking, a blimp sails past in the twilight sky, blinking lights outlining a screen broadcasting Sam's smiling face, spouting the kind of bullshit cattle ranchers probably did to the herds.

Dean kicks the fucking pile of scarves and materiel into a corner, yanks on a pair of jeans. He follows Angel out on the balcony, ready for him to snap, but he just sighs like his lungs are deflating and leans back against Dean instead, his solid warmth filling Dean up…Dean looks away from the sky, tries to tell Angel something about him and Sam that he'll understand. "You don't understand what it's been like with me and Sam, the way it's always been. We've had each other's back for--forever. No matter what he's doing now, what he's being _forced_ to do, he would never really hurt me."

Angel says quietly, "You really believe that, don’t you? You really think everything will be okay in the end…."

"Of course it will. It has to be. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't going to be. Sam can be as crazy as he wants to be, but there's one constant in his world—me. And it’s the lack of me that's making him this way. He's my center too, as much as I'm his."

"Then where does that leave me?" Angel asks and without hesitating Dean tells him.

"At my side, that's where. Right here at my side."

~o0o~ 

The apartment door opens with a nearly silent click. They both turn to the door, identical looks of pleased expectation their faces—Shem snorts at their damp hair and terrible attempts at innocent faces. Swings the couple of food stuffed bags he has clutched in his hands, and grins—and then slowly folds forward, a little gasp escaping him.

The bags drop and split open, an unfamiliar spicy scent filling the air. Little glass bottles chime as they hit the tiles, lose their lids and gush liquid all over the floor.

Dean's already crowding Angel behind him, the second that Shem looked—shocked, surprised, he was on his feet and pushing the kid back against what meager cover the couch provided, struggling to keep him there. _This is bad, really, really bad,_ screams through his mind but before he can tell just what kind of bad it is, something hot and sharp rips into his thigh and he's on his knees, screaming like a bitch. The pain is so bad he can't stop himself from curling on the floor, nails breaking against the tile as instinct makes him try to crawl away from the hurt. He's burning up from the inside, like that time Alistair poured acid into his open stomach. 

Angel screams, the sound bubbling and wavering like he's hearing it through water. He struggles to lift his head, focus, but nothing responds. He's frozen in place. His fingers spasm, his eyelids twitch and all he sees is Shem's empty eyes staring at him, the curve of his lip outlined by a thin, delicate line of blood, a lake of it under his cheek. Dean sees bright polished boots milling here and there behind Shem. He sees Angel dragged over the couch, limp hands dragging lifelessly over the tiles and smearing them with a thin sheen of blood before his vision swims to black.


	24. Journey To Chronopolis (part d)

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/roxymissrose/pic/000k3ywd/)

"Sir…communication has come from the Mayor…" The demon comes to an abrupt stop in the office doorway, waiting for some response. 

Sam slowly draws his gaze from a spot in the ceiling to the thing trying not to seem like it's cowering in the doorway. It pulls the face it's borrowed into some sort of grimace. Ah—a smile. Sam sighs, and grasps at the fraying edges of his patience. "Well what the hell does she want? I'm waiting for my conference call to go through," he says. He sighs again, and closes his eyes, the better to enjoy the mug full of hot, spicy coffee he's been nursing while he waits.

Another demon appears at Sam's side, this one dressed in the body of a secretary, tall, ice-blonde and cool-y stylish. Very Tippi Hedren, Sam thinks and then giggles. He's probably the last being on Earth who knows why that's funny…unless the angel is telling the truth about his pet…. 

The demon in the secretary suit barely raises an eyebrow, it's—she's—seen her Lord in many types of moods. Dealt with them all and so far survived. Her perfectly made up lips quirk in a faint, very brief frown. "The Yellow King is live; we're still waiting for the Duke of the Northern Provinces to join in—"

"Fucking Crowley—" Sam slams his hand into the desk and she jumps, imperceptible to anyone but him. His current consigliore and the rest of his lieutenants sway slightly, trying to get out of his line of sight. The lump in the corner makes a noise that might be laughter, might be pain. All over his office, the little black boxes open and close, like a chorus line of clams.

Sam leaps to his feet. "Fuck that asshole—put the mayor through. Make some excuse to the Yellow King. The Duke shows up, let him enjoy a taste of his own bullshit."

There's a sibilant discussion at his back that stops dead when his muscles string tight and he cracks his knuckles in an effort to loosen his hands a bit. The large screen near the stupid throne crackles and whines, builds to a low howl and then color explodes across it, settles into the image of Chronopolis's mayor, back bent in a deep bow. She's bent so low her head nearly touches the floor. So much sarcasm expressed so elegantly. Sam reminds himself that demons are shit for detail work and he can't destroy the city because he needs the lively brains and hands of Chronopolis.

"Brother Citizen, it is my honor," she murmurs and sounds so perfectly, sincerely…sincere. If Sam didn't know how much Chronopolis hates Dys and him by extension—or possibly it's the other way around—he'd be completely taken in.

Sam raises his lip in a small half-smile, and it's satisfying how her eyes widen a bit…he throws himself back behind the desk. "What is it—and it better be good."

"First," she says, "thank you again for allowing our petition and for heading the court." Sam wants to hit her, but the arrangement that's been in place for decades is a productive one, all told, and lets him think about other things—like destroying the opposition to his rule in the Yellow King, and the 'Duke'—ratty little cocksucker. 

When Sam destroyed Lucifer, and as a consequence of that blasted hell into pieces, just like a roach, Crowley was there to grab up as many of those pieces as he could before Sam dragged himself out of the pit in his own head and took the rest.

The mayor is patiently waiting for Sam to return his attention to her—it irritates him, but he shakes it off and concentrates on her once more. "Okay, fine, court—whatever—" he waves that off because that's not the important thing here, "—but that's not what you wanted to talk to me about—is it?" And puts as much hell as he can in his glare. Her dark brown skin fades to an ashen gray and that tickles him, enough to calm his rising temper a bit. 

"We--we have something for you—a gift." Her cockiness evaporates, she stammers the words, and it takes a moment before she's once again the regal, chilly being she projected at first.

"So send it the usual way," he growls. His patience tended towards the short end of the scale on the best of days and today was proving to be definitely _not_ a good day. He's getting that fucking clawing, _loud_ pain at the back of his head, the one that moves higher and higher until it digs in at the bridge of his nose and makes the light go dark unless he does something really… _sharp,_ to make it stop. It's been happening rather frequently lately—today it's particularly bad. Things around him shake a bit and start to smoke. His consigliore slaps its hands down on the little flares dotting Sam's desk and the stack of files slowly sliding across it.

"My king, this particular one is—look," she says quickly and her image fractures immediately and rearranges into a pair of green eyes framed by strips of silk. The features are obscured under the layers of translucent silk but the scan easily penetrated the fabric. There's nothing about this particular set of features that look familiar, but the eyes are—

Sam erupts from his seat and roars, "Bring that to me _now."_

She bows and clicks out without ceremony and Sam doesn't even care, he's willing to give her that one because he's got it—he's finally—he brings the picture up on the screen again and stares at the eyes, searching for that indefinable something that will reveal his pet. He's not sure but…there's something in this set of eyes. Something. 

He turns to Castiel in the corner, and smirks. "Found it. Found it. Looks like you lose," he sing-songs as he looms over the wreck struggling to hide inside itself, and trails long fingers over the ruin of the angel's face. He dips down and kisses mangled lips.

"I'm going to let you heal, so when it's here it can see you in all your perfect beauty. He's going to know that you betrayed him. Show me," he demands, and the screen lights up with pictures: horses and wagons and great caravans rolling toward the city, single humans and small groups. But nothing, no one like Dean in any picture. Scan after scan and he's nowhere to be seen. A blip pops up, a few different passages of brides. Stupid practice…there are two brides in one cart, five in another—boring, insipid—some of them are crying. Sam shrugs. All the other groups are the average pack of whiners. They move through the gates, guards checking each group of petitioners and nothing shows. The ugly brides are scanned and passed through, followed by varying groups ushered in by Floating City escorts…the last passage of brides move through the scanners and there. It's there. Doesn't look like Dean at all, looks like a really ugly woman but the eyes…Sam shudders from head to toe, shudders so hard he moans. Yes. There. They have to be...this has to be his prize. 

He's drawn to the screen, spreads his hands across it, excited, aroused, presses his dick into the edge of the screen and moans, "I'm going to hurt you so much, find new ways, take you to pieces and then, ah—do it again—" Whether it is or isn't doesn't matter, the results will be the same. Except, if it is…than he has an entire eternity to do it.

Light flares out of the screen—he jerks back, rubbing at burning eyes. "What the hell is that?" he hisses. His eyes narrow, watering against a sudden too-bright spot, a glitch that turns the screen white as the camera turns. Fades when it's facing away from Dean. 

"What is that? What is that—light?" he demands of Castiel. 

Castiel frowns. "I'm…not sure what you mean. It's…Dean. Perhaps Dean makes it."

"You're lying. It's some kind of angel crap, isn't it?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I am the only angel crap left. Maybe a few crippled worse than I, here and there over the world. It could be one of them…but I don't think so. There's no." Castiel stops, shrugs. "No flavor that I recognize."

A demon? Something bigger, badder than these feathery clowns? Sam stares at the whited-out spot on the screen with interest. Or maybe just a defect in the lenses there. He'll find out soon enough. 

He stands, snaps his fingers and a ring of demons surround him. "Let that bitch know, I'm coming to pick up my package in person."

There's a low moan leaking out of the speaker boxes around the room. Sam kicks Castiel hard in the side. Over the crunch of ribs breaking he says, "Shhhh…we'll all be together again, won’t that be nice? You missed it, didn't you? I bet it missed you. Us. It'll be lovely to have Roach back here in my hands. His heart in my hands." Sam stares into his clean, empty palms and sighs, anticipates that deep satisfaction filling the holes in him once again, bringing him something like peace again.

  
_5_   


Dean opens his eyes. It's too bright and they instantly water, tears run over his cheeks. Fear grips him, choking him into silence. He can't hear Sam, can't feel him. Where the hell is Sam? And then everything comes back to him like a kick to the head—his eyes dart around the space searching for Angel. The room he's in is full of light, reflecting off the ivory walls and the rich blue ceiling high above them. There are models—stars and planets and moons—hanging from it, but there's nothing child-like about them. There's a platform to the rear of the room, and something that looks like a telescope set up there.

 

All around them, huge windows are open to the outside, and from his vantage point, he can see gardens. Tall stemmed, daisy-like flowers with feathery leaves, roses of all colors and shaggy green mounds topped with dozens of tiny white flowers dot the green lawns as far as he can see from where he's sitting. It's beautiful, and the chair he's sitting in is comfortable, with its soft velvet nap, thick, over-stuffed cushions…and rope looped around and around it, lashing him tight to the chair. 

 

Angel, it turns out, is sitting across from him, glaring. He's also tied up, to a similar over-stuffed chair, and by the look in his eyes, he's pissed off _and_ terrified—just like Dean. The sight sets Dean to struggling, cursing under his breath, trying to tip the big, comfy chair he's roped into. He manages to scrape it a few inches across the white marble floor but that's about it. A couple of uniformed mooks appear out of nowhere, and they look kind of pissed off. 

 

"Now, now son, that's not going to help. We need to keep a cool head, all will be explained presently." The voice is smooth, cultured, and under different circumstances would be soothing. Right now, he just wants to get hold of the owner of that voice and choke them until they let Angel go. 

A tall, dark skinned woman comes into his view. She's got an elegant, intelligent face, softened by full lips curved in a smile, and large dark eyes, framed by ridiculously long lashes. She looks kind, loving—until she tightens her lips just a bit, narrows her eyes, and her whole face changes. "Now, we can do this easily or we can do this with a maximum of screaming and bleeding. It's really all the same with me." She walks around to Dean's side, and pats him on the shoulder, like she knows him. Smoothes long fingers over Dean's cheek and he freezes. "You're much more attractive than your picture. Your eyes really are very green…interesting," she says. 

"Thanks, sister," he snaps, and wants to say more but Angel is giving him the 'for god's sake, shut up' look.

She strolls around the room, leisurely unbuttoning the long, velvet-trimmed wool coat that sweeps her ankles as she walks, jerks her arms out of her coat and hangs it on a coat rack in the corner, Dean watches her; growls when she pulls two chains out of her waist coat pocket—the concealment charms. _Fuck._

"Are you a witch?" he snarls. "Is that how you figured out the charms?"

"Witch." She laughs. "I'm a scientist, boy. We're all scientists here," she says. "I'm also the mayor of this city. I'm also The Boy King's liaison between the humans and Legion. And this," she spreads her hands, "is the culmination of a plan set in place 

""Oh, god, you're going to tell us about it, aren't you?" Dean complains and Angel closes his eyes. Looks like he's praying…the mayor just smiles sweetly.

"Yes, I am." The Mayor pulls an ornament out of her hair and the complicated arrangement of knots and loops falls to her shoulders, a fall of whisper-thin braids frames her face, makes her look younger than she is--for a moment. She twists the ornaments, two long, thin pieces of silver topped with tiger eye, in her fingers, and continues the story. "This is a tale that should start 'once upon a time', like the ancient, ancient stories full of blood and suffering. Once, there were _very_ dark times. It was a time when demons took what they wanted, killed and ate what they wanted, destroyed for the pleasure of destroying. There was chaos and a King, but no rule. And then…things changed, and some order—some small order came into the world. The wars that were being fought _everywhere_ moved away, into the low desert, and for a while, it was better." 

"The low desert?" Angel asks. "Where—"

 

"Hell," she answers, and gives him a look that shuts him up. "There was a kind of peace, for a time. When it changed again, there was horror upon horror and only rumors to explain it all away but they explained nothing: a slave rebelled, a precious item was lost, murder, theft…no one knows the truth. Just that some disaster occurred among the Legion and it got…." she shakes her head. "You can't imagine how bad. We humans banded together and with the help and leadership of the Hunters, we cut our cities out of that hell on earth."

 

There's a fire inside Dean, roaring through him like a flood of lava. His heart stutters with the force of it. Listening to what had happened while he—slept, wandered, whatever had happened to him—so much of what these people suffered, and suffer still—is his fault. 

She walks around a large, round table that holds a globe sparkling with tiny clear lights. Some wink out as they watch—others brighten. She trails fingers over it, pets it lovingly. "Now, in this time, we're not so helpless. We planned; we redirected the flow of events. The plan was to give him what he seemed to want, this on advice from the last of the angels. It told us no matter what shape a Winchester's in, he'll need family, that the prince believed his brother lived somewhere in the world. We convinced him that we could find his prize, and send it to him. So we sent it, over and over. Imagine our surprise at finding what seems to be an actual Winchester, living, breathing…." 

Dean grits his teeth tight, holds himself tight to keep the bile down. Angel watches him, a slightly horrified look on his face. Sure. It's one thing to be told it, another to have it confirmed. "That's why the green-eyed boys are special," he spits. "Slaves 

"Slaves, guests, sacrifices —it's all the same."

"Damn it—why don’t you _care?"_

"We do. We care about keeping the human world alive. Do you know what it took to convince _Brother Prince_ he needed us--not just hordes of brainless, murdering, demon _filth?_ What sacrifices we made so that there was some measure of peace in this world? This is our world and we had to _prove_ we were necessary—" she clenched her fist, jerked it upwards…settled it gently atop the globe and sighed. "At the first opportunity, we sent tribute from Chronopolis to new Dys, in a wagon loaded with the first of our harvest, grown by us, something demons were incapable of. When the shipment into Dys came in railway cars on tracks we built and ran, it was obvious that our plan worked. On the seventh anniversary of the first tribute, we sent machines, and five human beings who became the first conscripts, the first 'willing' servants to our beloved Brother Prince. And the first green-eyed boy…."

Dean drops his head against the chair back and closes his eyes. "So you basically taught him that he needed clean, uncontrolled humans and that there'd be dessert at the end." 

"Yes. Exactly," she says, sounding like a teacher pleased with her student. "He concentrated on the war and we created—all of this. The mines, the Outlands, the Floating City and the heart, Chronopolis. Do you think it would have been possible if we were still running though the dark, hiding and praying not to be ridden or raped or eaten? You have _no_ idea what it was like in those dark days, none at all…and now the time has come _at last_ to seal the king and his enemies in hell, forever separate from the human world—now that we may have the key."

"What, your psychics tell you this?" 

She spits a disgusted sound and sweeps her hand through the air like she's sweeping some annoying gnat away. "We came to this by science. Precogs, telepaths, _psychics--_ they can never really know the truth. Only science can give you that. Logic. Clarity. That is important. We sifted through legends and myth and tales and winnowed out the likely truth." She pops the clasp on a box on her desk. It has the look of an antique writing box; it unfolds into a kind of laptop and chimes to life with the logo of the Citizen King. "Now you're to meet your destiny. And for what it's worth, I am a little sorry. For the both of you." She turns to Angel. "You, you're a puzzle. My council tells me that you seem to truly be an angel."

Angel laughs, and Dean winces at the sound. "Your council is butt-fuck lokar, then. I've been a slave, a whore, a thief—but no one in their right mind would mistake me for an angel. That's just my name…" he shakes his head with another bitter laugh. "Isn't even my name, they called me that as a joke, in the—the---before I ran away."

She runs her hands over the keyboard, the thing tinkles and chimes again, murmurs, "You must be very good at running. 

"No. I was born in Dys, I ran away from Dys."

Surprise and curiosity and something darker flits across her face. "Then you truly are very, very good at running away." 

Dean doesn't like the tone in her voice, the way she's staring at Angel. It's a look he recognizes, a hungry, avid sort of look… "Stop talking. You don’t have to tell her anything."

Angel shrugs as much as his bonds let him. "Don’t think we have to worry about it getting out and ruining my rep. This is pretty much the end for me."

Dean jerks against the ropes and growls—"Fuck that—" 

The mayor interrupts, she flips a toggle on the 'laptop', and a bell sounds. "You'll get your chance for a face to face. I think He'd want to see an angel with active grace. Or whatever it is that you are," she says thoughtfully, shakes herself slightly and smiles at the both of them. "Well now, this talk has been most entertaining but now, you really must be going."

The doors open and the uniformed mooks—her soldiers—come into the room, pushing two rectangular boxes. The boxes look solid, heavy. Ornate iron filigree, woven through with silver, flows over the lid and the sides. In the lid of each box is a thick piece of barely translucent glass, just clear enough that Dean can make out the wood lining inside. Right under the lip of the glass window are intertwined, bleeding roses etched in the iron and picked out in a rusty black.

"Ah, you've noted the iron and silver, practical and lovely. The boxes are designed to discourage certain factions from stealing His goods. Not that many would, not with His seal on it." She points out the roses, seems to be careful not to touch them for some reason.

Dean's heart clenched. This was it. Sam was coming, finally he'd be face to face with his brother, facing freedom and answers and an end to all of this—madness, he hoped. He licked his lips and glanced at Angel and…

"You haven't asked me what are the boxes for, dear."

Her uniforms peel off the wall, take a step so that there's one behind both of them. There's a flashing pain in his neck and just that suddenly the room flips and spins, Angel droops in his bonds. "Bitch—"

"Foolish, foolish toy—" he thinks that's what he hears, but before can really process the words, he's falling into a heavy, syrupy kind of darkness.


	25. The City of Dys/The End of Everything

1

When Sam steps through the doors of the Mayor's office, the model galaxy suspended from the ceiling is the first thing he sees, then the ornate cases stuffed with books, and the shelves and tables covered with gadgets that whir and click and beep. He thinks with some distant part of himself that he should be interested or curious, should be anxious to poke and sniff into everything. Maybe once upon a time he would have been but he's not now and he's certainly not interested in the mayor standing next to the cargo he came for, fidgeting and sweating in that tight, long, wool suit of repression…he can smell her hatred, her fear, and it pleases him. 

He walks to the nearest iron coffin. "Is this my prize?" he asks and peers into the glass window. Sam frowns…it's not Roach. Dean…it. Sam has no idea what that thing is in the box and at first, he's _angry,_ until he realizes—it's the glitch. He rubs the heel of his hand over the slab of glass. It's like looking at something underwater…like looking at something distantly familiar. "Hunh. Is it alive?" He notices the hand that had rubbed at and around the glass pane was a bit gritty. "Is this—ah, this is salt. Well done." He smiles at the mayor. The entire surface of the box has been sprayed with salt and the inside of it is lined with wood—yew or cedar, probably, definitely something painful for demons, deadly for some supernatural beings—he likes it. He might have to adapt this idea of theirs for his own. It could come in very handy when he needed to implement a bit of retraining on some of his stupider minions…

The mayor bows her head, acknowledging Sam's compliment. "Of course, he's very much alive, and well protected, Majesty. The drug will wear off in a few minutes."

There's an unpleasant hum he thinks is coming form the box, it crawls across his skin and worms its way into his head, making his nearly constant headache worse. Still the mayor had done her best and it was up to him to be…some version of grateful. "This is…I'm very pleased." 

"Then you'll extend the free zone?" 

There it is again, that arrogant streak of hers that annoys him no end—but amuses him also, fortunately for the mayor. He straightens, turns toward her; he's looming over her when he stops and glares. He can see the second his eyes shift by the look on her face. The woman sways a bit but she keeps her eyes locked firmly on his…arrogant and smart. "All right," he says finally.

It's a small thing to grant her, and he really is getting tired of trying to keep all that land under control and he's going to be busy soon anyway and this way he doesn't have to keep sending generals in and that means less infighting with subsequent loss of land and cattle—people, people, of course— "All right, I'll extend the free zone, north and south. We'll work out exactly how far when I have the time." 

The mayor tsks impatiently, unbelieving, but he's feeling generous today and besides, there is that thing where he actually likes her…instead of exploding her heart, he offers, "and I'll extend the zone without raising taxes. I put my seal on it."

She's not a fool, she knows when to back down…she takes a breath and bows. "Thank you, Majesty. And if I might, one last request—" she rushes on, afraid of being interrupted—or blown to bits, maybe—"extend the time between lottery and conscription?"

Sam frowns. "No. I'm not dealing with my ignorant horde scrambling for rides and forgetting about my enemies. Possession is the carrot on the stick I beat them with."

"Then banish them to the inner rings, Majesty," she says. "Or you can erase them, permanently—"

"Shut up. You don’t know—it's not your business." The throbbing headache escalates—annoyance with her ridiculous demands makes him burn inside. He's so tempted to smash her into a million pieces, smash Chronopolis, dice every one of the fucking arrogant show-offs… _deep breath, deep breath…_ Save it for when it counts, he thinks, and brushes away her request, her anxiety and disappointment. He drives his thumb between his eyebrows, trying to rub out that persistent ache. He says, "Okay, so…we've got this one in the box. But where's the thing you really called me for?"

The mayor points to a settee near the windows that look out on the garden. "I thought you might want to examine him more closely. I hope I didn't presume…"

Sam takes a deep, satisfied breath, the ache recedes and his fingers twitch with the desire to touch…after all these years, there it lies, perfect and whole and waiting to be Sam's again. All the madness, the searching everywhere and it's here, asleep on a settee, knees tucked up and still he barely fits on it, a blanket pulled up to his chin like a child in its bed. Sweet.

Sam circles the sleeper and looks down at it, surprised that he's experiencing some sort of emotional response. He's not sure what to call the odd feeling…victory? Possessiveness? Anger, hatred, desire…the sunlight is turning its hair bronze and gold, its lips are rosy, plump and curled into a slight bow. Dean. Dean, Dean _"Dean…"_

Dean takes slight, snuffly breaths, turns into the pillow tucked behind his head and sighs. He looks serene, trusting, _young_. Cas must somehow have thrown him whole into this time. Sam drops to his knees besides the sleeping man and strokes a tender hand through his hair, his thumb skates over Dean's cheekbone and across his full lower lip, which twitches and the pink tip of his tongue slips out and over it. Sam smiles. 

Soon, those lips will be parted in a scream and be full of blood…Dean sleeps on and smiles a little in his sleep.

"Will he wake up?"

The mayor closes the open windows. "Not for another hour or two. Long enough to take him home. We can load him in the box now if you wish."

"I don't wish," Sam laughs. "It's taken too long to find it, not letting it go now." He fists his hands in Dean's shirt and pulls him up on the settee. Dean's head lolls like a ragdoll's without support, his eyes stay closed despite Sam's shaking him—he's obviously deeply unconscious. Dean doesn't react at all when Sam yanks him completely off the settee and throws him over his shoulder. A toss of his head to the troops at the door brings them near. He directs the demons that have come with him to stand near the box. They sweat and groan at their close proximity to the torture of salt and iron but do exactly as Sam directs. "Flank this box all the way to the airship. When we're ready to load, no one is to touch the cargo but yourselves."

"But—why, Majesty—"

Sam makes a gentle inquiring noise and the demon speaking drops to its knees. The humans in the room try to back away without seeming to do so. Sam lays a gentle hand on its head, as if petting a favored dog and the demon smokes in its skin. Sam goes on in a reasonable tone, "I'm not asking you to carry the box, am I? Just load it on the airship. Is that so much to ask? Well, is it?"

They scramble over themselves to assure him that, "Oh no, no, sire, not at all, never…."

The mayor's standing at the remaining box, the lid raised. "Majesty, are you sure you wouldn't rather….?"

 

Sam turns to the mayor, "No. This one is as crafty as a roach—too inclined to slip away. I'm taking it myself." He slaps Dean's ass and everyone in the room jumps. Sam smiles. "As always, a pleasure. We'll contact you at the end of the month—I'll send a voxregis to take my place at this season's petition. We'll be lenient in all cases." He steps around her and peers at the box holding the glitch again. "I can hardly believe this boring bundle of sticks and hair is the thing that nearly threw a wrench in the system. What makes it special?"

"We have no idea, Majesty. It's…probably just a boy. An ex-slave. A criminal, run-away—a runaway from Dys, or so he claimed."

"Well if that _is_ the case, we have it back, then. Horses are always welcome." 

"He claimed to be trained, in all things, but beyond that he's intelligent. And there is that odd thing about him. He might not know he's a fallen…we might be able to bring it out of him, discover what he is. It seems…" she lowers her voice and her eyes, the model of respectful fear, but goes on, "…such a waste." _To treat him like a toy_ went unspoken.

Trained. Intelligent. Sam ignores her. It's completely unimportant if the boy is bright as a rock or if he's trained or not. He doesn't need brains to spill his guts, and sex—sex is mostly boring. Coupled with the fact that the mutt was a mediocre looking thing, he doesn't give a shit if the boy had been trained to folkdance and whip up a soufflé while sucking dick. If there really was anything special about this thing, he had the means to dig it out. He was going to enjoy discovering the facts.

~o0o~ 

The steam car the mayor provided takes them directly to the airship pad. His private ship waits there, the bloody roses—Sam's symbol—emblazoned on its side. It's a huge thing that, ungainly as it seems, still manages to give the impression it's straining to leap into the air. The howl of engines and propellers whirring up to speed assaults the air but Dean sleeps on, not once moving. Sam jogs up the ramp and sweeps into the ship, not pausing to check if his cargo was being loaded properly—he has no doubt it will. He's led to the upper level, towards the back of the ship, where guest cabins have been combined to create a suite.

All the way, Sam stalks along with his mind in overdrive—the pleasure he feels in the dead weight of Dean on his shoulder combines with the pleasure of the scenarios he considers, he relishes the satin slide of Dean's skin against his while planning retribution against the Duke, breathes in the cinnamon-smoke-leather scent of Dean while planning how to further consolidate his power with a few judicious assassinations...there's much less frantic rat-like scrabbling in his head with Dean back where he belongs. It's pleasant, this. His mind's more closely focused and the headache has finally, finally eased. He dreams of the games they'll play, imagines Dean's screams, the pleasant heat of his blood.

Sam lays Dean out in his suite himself, pulls the disgusting rags Dean's wrapped himself in away with his own hands, vanishing them into ash with a snap of his fingers. When he's finished cleaning him, Dean's stretched out on the bed, thin, long and beautiful in a rough sort of way. His skin's gone dark with the sun, which means his freckles are a darker copper now, spattered thickly everywhere. While Sam prefers Dean's skin pale enough to trace his veins, likes him thin enough to count every knob on his spine and feel the ribs straining against his skin, he has to admit, there's something to be said for this wild, feral Dean. This wild thing tossed across the brocade covers of the bed made Sam want to break open Dean's bones and suck out the marrow—he had a feeling Dean would fight him all the way now and for a bit, it would be entertaining. After all, it wouldn't be much of a feat to turn Dean back into his Roach when Sam tired of the game. 

He walks around the bed, enjoying the peace that having Dean with him again brings. All those years, crazy, howling years without him. He'd never once believed that Castiel didn't know what happened to Dean…turns out he was telling the truth. That one explosive push had sent him right out of time, really out of time. Castiel thought he'd won, the freak. But Sam had always been patient when it counted, and he'd waited, until they'd caught up with Dean again. Sam had spent way too much time hurting without his Sacrifice. He needed what only Dean could give…breaking Dean over and over brought Sam a bit of peace. Kept the hungry ghosts at bay.

 

Sam pulls a chair from the desk to sit at the bedside. He strokes Dean's cheek, draws sigils of possession and holding across his bare chest, traces the muscle in Dean's arms and the length of his legs, draws wards and locks along the faint trail of hair pointing downwards on his belly…just for fun of course, none of it means anything without blood or spit or semen. He strokes Dean's slack lips and vows that this time…this time he'd be careful. The wards and locks he'll put on Dean now will be impossible to break. They'll drive him insane but that's not an issue. With Castiel in nearly one piece, he can use the angel's grace to make the binding permanent and irreversible. But not before using him to find out just what the hell that was in the box.

Sam adjusts the cabin's lamps to a soft glow and pulls the chair up to the desk near the bed. A marquetry box takes up most of the desk area, he lifts the lid and the box emits a soft chime and the inside of the lid shivers with color before the intertwined, bleeding roses appear on the screen. A moment later 'Tippi Hedren' greets him. 

"Our King. As of the sixteenth hour, here are the latest updates: Requesting that you remain on the sidelines, the Yellow King plans retaliation against the Duke, for a skirmish initiated by him, affecting a portion of the Eastern Province. Survivors are estimated at 1,084,022.604. The probability of a famine has been decreased by 19 percent. The probability of plague has risen, but as that constitutes a non-supernatural event, no troops have been assigned, pending your orders. The Princess in Steel has retreated to the interior. The Dog has retreated to the ice caps. At this point—"

Sam lets her voice drone on and on, he fiddles with the dials and keys and toggles on the machine and slips into a waking dream. He remembers, and wonders idly if these might be real memories…they were when The Doctor took them from Dean. He dozes, mind filled with a memory of two little boys fishing in a stream dancing with fractured bits of sunlight….

~o0o~ 

_'Angels watch over you, Dean, whether you want it or not. Full of grace, Dean, full of grace….'_

_Dean whirls about—confused, and honestly, a little frightened. He's in a long, white hallway filled with light and at the end of it, Castiel is walking towards him, his arms open and a sweet smile on his face._

_'It's all coming together now Dean, can you feel it?' He says, his arms spread wide, 'The end of pain, Dean, the end of pain.' Castiel frowns then and sighs. 'You'll loose him before it's over, of course, but it will be okay, Dean. You'll get him back, and it will be well with you. This mistake I made, Angel and Sam will fix all of it.'_

_Castiel comes closer and closer, his arms wrap around Dean, and his mouth is on Dean's, not a kiss, just…close. 'I promise that,' he says and then he's slipping inside, his arms sink into Dean and Dean's whole body fills with warmth, Castiel is in him, part of him and then, he's gone, leaving Dean feeling hollow and sad and cold…_

_'I promise,' he hears and wakes up_

Dean wakes up with no clue where he is, no clue what's happening—nothing. Tall, wide windows all along one wall light the room he's in, through them he sees a beautiful, sun-lit view of a city spreading right to the horizon. Dean blinks, tilts his head and blinks again—"What the fuck?" 

The view is a fake—it's like a giant photo pasted onto the glass…who would do that, and why? He turns slowly, his eyes slide along a long black table that dominates the room. A few pieces of furniture are scattered in the open space, all chrome and leather, with short-napped fur rugs flung here and there. It's all black and white. It's cold and pretentious.

Dean looks behind himself and there's a big, dark chair, almost a throne, against the opposite wall. Suddenly his guts twist and he's about a breath away from throwing up, he's on his hands and knees and shaking to bits and he doesn't know why—the place isn’t scary, it's bland, boring. It's douche-bag central. 

"Okay, okay, relax...you're just…freaking for no reason…" Talking to himself doesn't relax him a damn bit—he jumps a fucking foot at a low, whimpering noise from behind one of the couches. Dean grabs a thing, a vase or something, from an end table and creeps toward the couch. If it's a monster, Dean's shit out of luck. The stupid piece of whatever it is in his hand isn't much protection against anything....

"Dean—"

"Fuck!" Dean throws the vase down and practically jumps over the couch. He's looking down at Angel, who's crammed himself small as possible behind the couch. He looks terrified—he looks ready to die of fright. He's the color of cheese and stinks of sweat and vomit. "I was awake I was awake I was awake I was awake…" he keeps mumbling the words, quivering and mumbling like a little lost kid.

Dean drops down, reaches out and pulls Angel into him. Angel seems not to see anything or realize that Dean is touching him. He's lost in some nightmare and Dean stroking his hair and rubbing warmth back into Angel's waxy skin doesn't register at all. 

Dean's trying hard to maintain. It's overwhelming, all of this. One minute he's being fucked around with in the mayor's office, and the next he's in some other room with a freaked out Angel, wondering what the hell he's talking about when it clicks—the box. Angel was crammed in one of those boxes, and whatever else had happened it's been longer than a minute—from the way Angel was going on, much longer. Dean figures he knows what's making Angel into a mess—he'd seen Sam freak out just the same way after being trapped inside a cedar chest during a hunt. Great time to find out you're a little claustrophobic…fuck. Dean wishes he knew what the fuck was going on. Where the hell was Sam? Had he come or not?

There's nothing Dean can do right at this minute so he does what little he can. Rocks Angel, tells him over and over it's okay, they're alive and fine and together and nothing can hurt them and sure hopes like hell he's not lying.

It takes a bit, but Angel finally uncurls from the frantic ball he'd been. Dean can feel his racing heart settle slowly; his breaths even out until they're gentle puffs against Dean's neck. Finally, he speaks. "Where…where are we, De?"

"Don't know—but I'm figuring we can count on it being someplace fucked up, with our luck. It's—it's kind of familiar though." Dean blinks, and a whole new scene is overlaid on the one he's looking at, demons of all sorts, shapes, laughing, reaching for him…he turns to look at the long black table and Sam's at the head of it, winking at him and smiling….

"Dean!" Angel has his face cupped between his palms, and Dean's skin is hot where Angel touches him, freezing cold and clammy everywhere Angel doesn't. "Dean, you back with me?"

_"Dean."_

Dean and Angel both jerk—look towards the door. _Sam._ Sam is coming towards him, smiling. The same slick, grimace meant to be a smile that he wore in Dean's vision, nightmare…flashback? God, Dean shudders, he hopes to fuck that it wasn't a damn flashback. He feels—fear, mostly fear, a little anticipation because it's Sam. 

But mostly fear because there's no way that—thing—is really his brother.

"Dean, Dean, Dean. It's good to have you back—what are you doing?" Sam's tone slides from overly-sweet to a growl. His eyes slide from hazel to mustard and Dean realizes he's been crowding in front of Angel from the moment Sam walked in the room. 

"You never did know what was good for you," Sam mutters and snaps his fingers. There's a flurry of noise and movement behind Sam, and then someone staggers into the room, arms wind-milling to keep from falling. They're only partially successful; they drop to their knees in front of Sam.

Dean flinches. "No fuckin' way—" It's not possible, no way, it can't be. But the person turns their face up, and long black hair parts to reveal blue eyes wide in shock. "Cas…Castiel?"

It is Castiel, swaying on his knees and looking confused as hell, looking damn good for a being Dean thought had died that day in the gas station parking lot. He'd been sure that Cas went up in a ball of flame, that he'd been exploded when Lucifer went down…but no, that was wrong, Castiel had still been alive then, it was just him and Cas and Sammy had disappeared....

Dean's hands fly up to his face—he's hiding behind his hands like a four year old, shaking…No. he hadn't disappeared. Sam had come back, just… _wrong._

Cas manages to stand, wavering to his feet. Blood drips, slow, thick, drop after drop from his nose, but he's smiling. "Dean? Dean, it is you…I'm sorry, my friend. I tried, I really did. I made such a terrible mistake, and I'd hoped that— _oh."_

All along the room, multiple clicks sound, coming from dozens of black boxes springing open, a single blue eye peering out of each one. They look like the blue eyes staring at him now, Cas' eyes. A low murmuring fills the room, eerie in how close it sounds to speech. Sam was glaring at Castiel, hands fisted on his hips and his mouth a furious flat line. Dean's about to ask him what the flying fuck was going on when Angel yelps, yanks on his arm and points. A screen behind Sam plays the scene before him. "Oh fuck…"Dean whispers. It's Angel, front and center on the screen, a stunned expression on his face, a hand on Dean's arm and the other pointing towards them. Dean wonders if everyone is seeing this…for a hot second, he wishes he could paste a 'kick me' sign on Sam's broad back…Angel cuts his eyes towards him and his glare is nearly as scary as Sam's. 

Through all this, Cas seems frozen, just—staring at Angel, wonder in his eyes, the blood dripping faster now. "You did it, Dean, you rescued Sam. Sam—" Castiel holds his hand out to Angel and Sam knocks it down. 

"You recognize that thing. What is it? One of your angels?"

Angel shakes his head, backing away from Cas, from Sam, trying to pull Dean with him. "Christe, oh fuckin' Nomdei, c'mon, c'mon—we've got to get—Christe," he gasps, ignoring the flinching, snarling figures around them. "Do you know what he is? He's an angel,Dean, an _angel,_ not like Gavreel, he's topped up and…an _Angel."_

Sam closes his hand over Cas' shoulder and squeezes. Dean can hear bone popping and Cas' tiny hiss of pain "So, is it an angel or not?"

Cas shakes his head, gasps, "Not an angel, a soul."

"Oh for—" Sam shakes Castiel. "Don’t be stupid, souls don’t walk around in meat suits—well they do, and then we call them human. This thing is. There's something different about it, other than human. Some new species of angel or demon."

Cas manages to pull loose from Sam and darts towards Angel. "This is what you've been waiting for; you may not have known it but this—"

Dean pushes in front of Angel again. "I swear to God, you touch him and I'll kill you."

"Dean, you don't understand—Sam has to touch your—your friend."

Angel practically crawls up Dean's back trying to keep Castiel away; he's shaking, worse than before, like he's going to fly into a million pieces. "Dean, you said you weren't going to let him kill me, you swore!"

'No one's killing anyone, damn it, you hear me, no one's going to die—"

" _SHUT UP._ "

Everything stops. The floor shimmies under their feet like it's made of water, the walls creak, the windows bow and stretch and snap back into their frames with a high-pitched whine. Sam lifts his hand, curls it into a fist and Dean flies to a wall, sticks there like he's velcroed—stuck and trapped like the YED had trapped his family a million years ago, only this yellow-eyed freak is his Sam, his Sammy….

Sam's furious, his power leaking out all over. Dean feels his blood swelling in his veins, beginning to burn as Sam's anger takes the room apart, bit by bit. The furniture jolts across the tiles, the tiles rock and come loose…the windows fly open and shut again and the curtains become a snowstorm of shredded fabric. Dean blinks quickly, trying to clear the blood out of his eyes—he sees in bits and pieces, stop-motion shots—Castiel darting towards Angel, scooping him up. Dean hears Cas shout, "It's meant to be, you'll understand, it was never supposed to be like this, this is all wrong—" 

Cas barrels into a startled Sam and Sam staggers, his arms come up and around Angel and Dean knows that for Sam to touch Angel is the worst, the most horrible thing that could happen in a lifetime full of terrible things. For a split second he hates Sam, for that split second he hates Castiel even more. Dean screams, helpless to do anything else. Angel never looks his way before he and Sam and Cas collide.

"No, no, no—"  
Dean freezes. Everything freezes. The air stops moving, Dean's lungs stop, his heart stutters. Sam and Angel are wrapped around each other like lovers, statue-still, Cas falls to the ground in slow motion and his wings come out, a flare of black feathers sliding out and out, over the floor, up the walls. His expression twists into something Dean can't read…not pain, not relief, or victory…unknown. 

Huge sapphire-blue eyes turn his way and Cas says something Dean can't hear, it looks like sorry—it could be anything, but when Cas' hands come up to cover his face, Dean slams his eyes shut. Behind closed lids, Dean knows that Castiel's true form fills the room, a light so bright Dean feels his skin tighten, hairs crisp and the smell of burning fills his nose—there's a flash of feeling, a breeze across his cheek, the ghostly press of phantom lips.

~o0o~ 

At last the light dims. Dean opens his eyes to a room empty of everything but himself and Sam. The windows are gone, the room scoured of every unclean thing, all reduced to ash swirling in the light breeze coming through the vanished windows. It's silent. Dean touches his ears and his fingers come away wet…he can't hear. Before he can even think about that he's staggered with the realization that Cas is gone, _Angel_ is gone. Loss slams into him—Angel's gone, disappeared like he'd never been. Dean blinks in shock—Angel was Sam, all this time, Angel was Sam. He'd fallen in love and felt guilty and disloyal and torn but Angel had been familiar. He'd been annoying and—and good. He'd been a really good person. Because he's Sam—was Sam—he'd been the best part of Sam. Dean shakes his head. Sure. It was obvious, now. Of course Angel was Sam. This was…so fucked up it could only be true. Castiel was right—he'd fucked up beyond royally. Dean wished Castiel was back, so he could _kill_ him. But at least before he'd whatever—died, returned, became one with the universe—he'd fixed it.

He hadn't really lost Angel, Dean told himself, he'd gotten Sam back, the way he should be…and thinking of Sam brought him back to the here and now, now was where Sam was on his knees, clawing at the floor, and Dean's hearing snaps back in tune to Sam's screams. He's screaming in a way Dean's only heard in hell. Blood drips from his mouth and eyes in a steady stream. Sam's dying—his brother's whole again but—Sam stops screaming and the silence is deafening. 

Dean scrambles across the floor towards his brother. He's shocked that Sam's actually breathing, nice and steady, so that's a plus. Instinct trained into them as kids has Dean checking Sam out, making sure that nothing's broken or sliced or missing…it's all good. Except for the blood that slows but won’t stop. Dean's hands skate through the coating of it on Sam's cheeks, his thumb's on Sam's throat, pressing lightly into Sam's clock-work steady pulse. He lifts Sam head, and gulps. Sam's eyes are full of blood. He wipes it away and finally, Sam's eyes flutter open. They're murky at first but clear quickly. He blinks rapidly, licks blood coated lips. "Fuck…" he mutters, eyes rolling, darting here and there. Dean keeps stroking him, petting him, fuck the Winchester Rules for Dealing. If he didn't feel like he'd just lost a major piece of his heart, he'd be cheering. And that thought he wrestles mercilessly into a box in his brain. He'd deal with…all that…later. 

Sam finally seems to slide into the here and now; he shakes himself slightly and meets Dean's eyes. "Oh fuck, Dean…Dean, is that you? What…what happened? Where am I?" He hesitates; when he speaks his voice comes rough like he's swallowed gravel "Are…you okay?"

Just like Sam to worry about Dean when his own shit's going to hell. Dean laughs a little and pulls back, pats Sam's chest. If his hand lingers a bit, it's okay. He's allowed. "You're…you're okay now, Sam. Just—here, let me help you up."

He's got Sam's elbow in his hand, steadying him. The wind picks up a bit and the ash is swept out the windows. Sam drops his head to Dean's shoulder, his lips soft and whispering over his cheek…"Oh, Dean," Sam says, "Oh, Dean."

He pulls away from Dean and grins, wide, so wide. There they are, the dimples Dean kept seeing whenever Angel smiled. "Oh _come_ on now. Did you _really_ think something _sparkly_ was going to happen? You've always been so fucking _easy,_ Dean."


	26. The City of Dys/The End of Everything  (part b)

2 

Laughter fades as Dean opens his eyes slowly…woozy because the room is reeling, swooping like a theme-park ride. He sucks in a breath, licks dry lips—the entire inside of his mouth is like cotton, like he'd passed out with his mouth hanging open. Nice. He doesn't feel hung-over, though...Dean's stuck between confused and annoyed until memory starts trickling back. 

"The fuck.." He's on his back in an empty room, wearing a pair of stiff Wranglers and a bright white cotton t-shirt just like the tees they used to buy three-in-a-pack at Wal-Mart lifetimes ago. It's twisted around his torso, uncomfortable enough that it distracts him from the important question for a moment—where the hell did this shit even come from?

He shakes his head and brings himself to sitting. "Angel…?" He's looking around the room as he climbs to his feet, but he's alone, no one and nothing in the place, not a stick of furniture, bare windows, no Angel—nobody. The tiles under his feet are chilly, which is when he realizes he's barefoot, too. Okay, so he's alone, then where is Angel, and how did he end up in this gear and where are his boots and _where's Angel?_

He blinks and Sam's in front of him, appearing from out of nowhere and suddenly in his face. 

"Hello, brother. I've missed you."

And here it comes, like a monstrous nightmare/ flashback. Memory bears down on him like a runaway 18 wheeler—where he is and what happened to Angel and why he's alone in an empty room with _Sam,_ who's scaring him shitless—and why. "What the fuck—what did you—Sam?" It's hard to believe this is his brother, this cold, implacable force, staring him down with multi-colored eyes that shift black and gold and green.

Sam says nothing, just tilts his head and pins Dean with that icy stare, like he's inspecting Dean for flaws. "Look at you, you little pathetic—you cost me a lot, you know. I wasted precious time and resources looking for you. But don’t worry about it, you'll have eons to repent." He turns away and walks to the door, pulls it open and snaps, "Bring him to my suite." 

He's gone, just like that.

Demons swarm Dean, grabbing at him, lifting him right off his feet and he deserves a fucking medal for not screaming. He searches the room for Angel even though he knows Angel's gone but he can't stop himself and the sorrow that sweeps him is crippling. 

They shove him out through the door and down the long, paneled hall. The bronze sconces punctuating the walls barely throw enough light—weird shadows dance and leap across the walls and ceiling, the jagged shapes make Dean's eyes blur and water. He can’t see and that scares him, cold sweat blooms across his shoulders, running in chill rivulets down his spine. Horrified that he's about to cry, he forces it down. There's not a shred of hope left to him, he's pretty sure what's coming next with Sam isn't going to be _let's break out the beers and catch up_ time. He's not an idiot…but now, more than ever, Sam's going to need him and Dean's got to figure out some way to get through to him…if not, than he's got to figure out…some other way. 

The demons, for all they're pawing him, fingers and talons and tentacles for fuck'ssake, in uncomfortable places, they're not hurting him. They just pull him along, talking shit that's meant to scare him but they're amateurs after what Dean's been through—shit, he could give _them_ lessons at this point. 

Finally, they slow down, and come to a stop in front of an outsized door. The demons pull back until only Dean and one of the slightly more human looking of the horde are standing close to the door. It knocks and one of its mouths speaks.

"Our King...your…the…um. Brother is here…?"

The thing's discomfort would be kind of funny if Dean wasn't scared shitless himself. He's got a quiver going in his knees, so gentle that at first he doesn't notice, sort of wonders what the strange feeling is. The quiver spreads, works its way higher, getting stronger. His gut tightens and a band around his chest pulls taut…someone behind him shoves and he stumbles, ending up with his cheek pressed flat against the door. The wood is smooth and cold and faintly, possibly, a little slimy. 

"Ngh—" he can't move and the quivering's escalated into full blown shakes. The door opens slowly and he stumbles forward a few steps before catching himself. 

"Stop wasting my time and get in here." Sam's voice is deep, knife-edged, and impossible to disobey. Dean edges in carefully, his bare toes gripping the tiles, eyes darting here and there and his breath coming in sharp, short gasps that barely expand his lungs. Sam is standing in the middle of the room, smile creasing his face and a hand held out to him. Behind Sam is a bed miles wide and piled with a cloud of bright, white pillows. 

Dean bends like he's been folded and vomits.

His ears are ringing and his insides burn with the force of it and over the noise of blood pounding in his ears and the pathetic retching he can't control, he hears Sam's voice again, now thunderous with anger. 

"Shit—Damn it, Dean!" it sounds so much like Sam finding towels piled in a wet ball on the bathroom floor that it startles him into a laugh—hurts like being stabbed. Dean looks up and into Sam's yellow eyes and he _remembers._

Only this time, it's everything that ever was, the story of Winchester—every single little thing, from that sunny morning they lost it all in a gas-station parking lot, right up to Angel disappearing forever into Sam. 

Everything about Sam and what he did—what he'd done. Something shows mercy and Dean drops like he's dead, down and out for the count.

~o0o~ 

When he opens his eyes, he drools out a few weak curses. Too tired and too beaten for more. "I'm getting fuckin' sick an' tired of this," he mutters. His damn wrists hurt. There's a dull ache circling them, pain alternating between dull and sharp gnawing at his shoulders and down his chest. It's hard to breathe and he thinks at first that it’s some kind of asthma attack until his head clears some and he realizes he's got arms above his head and he's hanging from a hook above him. He's not in Sam's apartment, he's in a different place, a place he recalls with crystal clarity between one panicked breath and the next. It's a long and narrow room, freezing cold. Arching metal struts hold up a distant ceiling and weeping brick walls frame a single, huge window. The dozens of mullions cast shadows in a grid pattern across the stone floor, up the far wall. The air reeks of old blood and the faint tang of rotten meat. At his knees there's a metal table dotted with dark stains. Every cell of him recognizes where he is.

A man wearing a long white coat with a high, stiff collar drifts into his range of sight. The cuffs of his white coat are spattered with blood. The light from the single arched lamp curving over Dean's head makes the thick lenses of the man—a doctor—into flat, blank disks. 

Not _a >_ doctor. _The_ Doctor—the butcher. The one who'd told Dean he was envious of his skill and that of his teacher's, the one who'd been so proud and so eager to show Dean his own skills and had taken him lovingly to bits piece by screaming piece….

Hot liquid streams down Dean's leg, splashes against the tile floor.

"Tsk. N o matter, We'll have someone clean that," the Doctor says. He moves another table to Dean's side and starts sorting through the implements on the trays there. "I didn't think to see you again. What a pleasant surprise." Black rubber ghosts over Dean's face as the doctor strokes a gloved hand over his cheek. "A most pleasant surprise." Dean jerks in the chains, knows he can't get away but his body still tries to escape. Pulling on the chain makes him whimper, makes his eyes run.

"Stop that. You don't need to touch him except where I direct." Sam scowls and the Doctor manages to cringe without actually moving. Sam says, "I think…yes. We'll start with his skin."

The Doctor murmurs happily and rummages on the tray, brings up a thin, sharp saw. "We'll begin with your arms, and work our way in, hmm?"

Dean starts screaming. No point in pretending to be brave.

~o0o~ 

Sam picks him up and carries him back to the room when the Doctor finishes. He drops Dean on the white bed and the cotton stains immediately with red. He says, "This is never going to end, not until I get tired of it, you understand? You were stupid enough to come back to me, stupidity like that deserves some suffering, don’t you think?"

Dean lies on the bed and tries not to move or think but he can’t stop the flood of tears down his cheeks. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, he wasn't supposed to have killed Angel, Sam wasn't supposed to be a monster.

He spends days and days spread out on the bed, or sometimes huddled on the floor or crouched against the kitchenette's counter when Sam's not there. These are long days that melt and run together so that he's not sure anymore what is real and what isn't. He can't use pain as a marker, he hurts all the time. Sam talks to him non-stop, but it's the same old shit, the same litany of his failings, his losses, what a fuck-up, what a loser, what a worthless piece of meat.   
He hears it and all he can think is 'so fucking what.' Sam…Dean's never done anything right when it comes to Sam, so nothing this monster says can break him. Can’t break the broken.

~o0o~ 

Something's off and it wakes Dean up. He comes to in the white bed, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he's alone and that's what woke him. He pushes up to the head board, pulls his knees up and just—sits. He smiles a little. It feels good to be alone. 

He gazes at the bare, sea green walls. Remembers the prints that had hung on them, the prints it turned out only he could see, messages of encouragement from Castiel. There are no prints on the wall now, and Cas is gone, maybe for good. Since Sam's not there, Dean slides off the bed and pads across the tiles to the kitchenette sort of tacked onto one side of the suite. He wonders if Sam eats…despite the tiny kitchen, there's never really anything to eat in the place. Today, though, there's a carton of orange juice in the min-fridge and a loaf of bread. Nothing else and he doesn’t know when Sam's coming back, so…he rips open the package and crams a few slices of bread in his mouth. 

He wanders around the suite, chewing, drinking OJ out of the carton. Something's wrong—or wronger than usual. He thinks, wonders, if maybe the entire escape had only taken place in his head? Like maybe Angel had been the Sammy that he'd missed so much he made him up in his dream. Maybe something extra-crunchy weird happened when Cas went nova that time, some kind of whole-body/brain hallucination…except lately there's these moments in which Sam looks at him like he's puzzled…and Sam's never done that before. Sam never really looked at him at all unless he wanted to break another piece off. 

There are other odd things now…like, he's _hungry._ He knows that's weird. Not all his memories of being caged here in the basement with Sam are clear, but he can't remember ever being hungry. He remembers…wanting Sam, needing him so bad, and doing things out of that need that turns his stomach now. He remembers not caring then. Of being so afraid of Sam he'd do anything to keep him from getting pissed off. 

He snorts and drops the empty juice carton on the floor, kicks it in the general area of the kitchenette. Wasn't like Sam wouldn’t find something to make him bleed for, might as well make some part of it worth the pain. 

So—he gets hungry now, and thirsty. But Sam can still gut him and after, Dean wakes up healed. So…it's real, and it’s not real. Dean shakes his head. This building feels real, but the elevator doors open up on Hell. And Hell is a place but it’s not the kind of real that places like Kansas or New York or—or—Vegas are. Okay, maybe not Vegas.  
Dean perches on the edge of one of the couches and stares out the windows. They look out to red sand and fire and in the distance, a lone tree growing right up into the bloody sky. The tree is familiar, but it takes a while before he realizes it's familiar because it's like the tree that Cas had been hung in, in those invisible-to-Sam prints. 

"Hunh." He crams the last bit of bread into his mouth and brushes crumbs off his lap onto the floor.

~o0o~ 

Sam fucks him, and it hurts so bad it has to be Sam's idea of a joke. Dean tries not to scream, bites into the pillow and grinds his teeth down into the fabric, his jaw working back and forth as he shouts harsh screams into the cotton. 

Sam pulls out, and Dean feels like his insides are coming out with. Sam drops his hand on Dean's back. Pins him in place and grunts, comes on Dean's back. It's hot and thick, and Dean's not the slightest bit aroused by it. He can remember how it used to be once upon a time, how Sam would do it and he'd grouch and complain and kind of love that Sam had to mark him like that, wanted him so much he had to claim him…this Sam has claimed and marked him plenty. It's okay, he's just waiting until his mind gives up permanently, chases itself so far down a hole not even Sam can dredge it back up again. 

"Get up," Sam says, and slaps Dean's ass. It's so sudden and painful that Dean can’t keep the shout in. Sam rolls to his side watches Dean gingerly roll upright and edge back against the headboard. He watches Sam from the corner of his eye.

"Tell me about the thing—you called it Angel."

"I called _him_ Angel. You should know everything about him." Dean tries but he can't keep his tone soft and Sam jerks back, his eyes flat and yellow like a cobra's. He clamps a hand down on Dean's shoulder and it pops out of joint. 

"You watch your tongue before I take it out permanently this time," he hisses and just like that, the rage recedes and the snarl melts into a sneer. "And what do you mean I should know everything about him? You think I absorbed him, like a shifter? He wasn't _real,_ stupid. Whatever memories he had weren't real. It was some fucked up angel shit," Sam says. His eyes fade from yellow to hazel—Dean hates it a little when they do. "So entertain me with whatever crap he fed you." Sam smiles, chin resting on his hand and he's staring at Dean like he's about to tell him some campfire tale. 

Dean blinks back at Sam, speechless. What could he tell him? _Angel was real, I loved him? I know now I loved him because he was you?_ He was supposed to tell this shell of his brother how Angel's fucking little face was just like Sam's at eighteen, how his arms were sharp and thin like knives but felt good wrapped around him, felt like home…?

Sam suddenly rears back and his eyes flash black and mustard and he slams his fist down on Dean's chest, hard enough to crack bone. The pain of his shoulder and the pain in his chest make Dean want to vomit. "You were in love with that—that _thing!_ Unfaithful bitch!" 

He slaps Dean and it's like being clocked with a cinderblock. Blood bursts out between Dean's clenched teeth. Sam roars on, grabs Dean by the hair, fisting the short length tight, he drags Dean off the bed, his knees crack when they hit the floor. Sam stalks away from the bed and Dean tries to keep up, running bent over, shouting in pain when he trips and Sam keeps dragging him anyway. He throws Dean across the room and he staggers into the useless kitchen. Dean drops and cowers against the fridge, arms raised over his head and his whole body frozen in fear.

Sam's staring down at him, sides heaving, spit on his chin, "You fucked him—you loved him. You wanted to stay with him. You said you were looking for me but you—" Sam gasps, eyes huge and wounded. Dean thinks this monster shouldn’t even be able to produce an expression like that

"You were going to kill me if you couldn't—" Sam's lips pull back in a snarl, his eyes flash blood red. Red stains his cheeks, and his hands come up, fingers curled like claws. "You'll remember who you belong to when I'm finished." 

Some memory beaten deep into Dean's muscles drives him to scoot across the floor. He drops his head over Sam's feet and begs for mercy, licks across their tops and up Sam's calves, he works his tongue up the length of his legs, slicking the skin, wetting the hair. He nuzzles into Sam's crotch, mumbling 'please, please' over his soft dick, mouthing at it, hoping Sam gets hard and wishing he was as mindless as he'd been when this was a way of life.

~o0o~ 

The Doctor's sends Dean back and Sam rages at what a sloppy job he's done. Dean's inclined to agree—strips of skin dangle from his calves and he's desperate enough to beg Sam in whatever way he has to, to get Sam to heal him. Instead Sam drapes him over one of his ugly couches and takes a whip to him. 

Dean's crying and screaming in minutes. He can't move because Sam holds him down with his freak demonic mind powers. He goes silent long before Sam stops—with nothing but the pain and the taste of thick blood to hold onto, no amount of diving for the bottom of his mind works. One thought chases itself around and around his brain when he can think at all. 

If Sam was angry with the Doctor's work, why was he taking it out on Dean?

~o0o~ 

Something is happening in Sam's world that Dean has no idea of. Outside of the endless no-time in Sam's apartment, things have been happening. Dean wonders what it is that's happening in the outside world that's shaking up the Legion—he wonders if there's still a world outside this room. 

Sometimes, Sam stares at him in an odd way, and when that happens Dean's always surprised that there is in fact even more fear that he can dredge up. Because that look usually presages a visit to the lab, or worse, a session here with Sam. He fights the pain on those occasions. he fights his illusions that the apartment is more or less safe…but he's with Sam so what is safe?

3 

"Our King—" Tippi Hedren and some of Sam's minions sweep into the suite almost as if they own it. Dean cringes, milk dripping off the spoon full of cereal he's got clutched in his hand and frozen on its way to his mouth. He's not sure if he should get out or stay where he is. He glances towards Sam for clues but Sam is watching Tippi with a mildly amused tilt to his eyebrows. Tippi's glaring at Dean like he's garbage—until Sam clears his throat and she pales, bobs her head. "Our King," she repeats, "There has been escalation in the North."

Sam comes to attention. "I thought that Amon was on that. What the fuck is going on?"

"Part of that faction was destroyed early this morning. At the four hundredth hour, The Yellow King was overtaken by The Dog. At that time also the Duke moved on the Princess In Steel. There's nothing left of that faction, Majesty."

"Fucking—you're coming to tell me this _now?_ You should have come the moment it happened. Fucking incompetent sack of shit—" 

She turns into a torch, screaming all the while, "We just found out now, we just found out—" her screams go on and on, and Dean's frozen at the table, gulping and gulping, praying so hard he's whimpering that he won't vomit into his Lucky Charms and attract Sam's attention. Sam reduces another few officers to ash before his rage finally cools enough to think. He's stalking around the room, hands deep in his hair and muttering, "Okay, okay—this is good, this works. The Duke is the only problem, the other one is fucking nuts and easy to distract…" he jerks when he sees Dean at the table, hunched over a bowl of soggy cereal. "Oh right, you. You—you stay in here, don’t leave this room for anything. They'll be gunning for us for a while, thinking they can get past me. " 

Sam's still distracted and Dean slides off his chair and tries to squirm past him into the bedroom area but Sam's attention snaps to him and he grabs Dean by the shirt. "You will not leave this room. No one will come for you, understand? I will send no one, you will not answer any summons until you see my face again—you hear?"

Dean shakes in his brother's grip and nods, yes, yes and yes, no one will come for him, he won’t leave, he won't--

Dean stays in the bed, spends an entire day there waiting but Sam doesn't come. There's no food, and nothing to drink and by the second day, Dean's uncomfortable. He knows he probably won’t die—probably can't die, but the hollow ache in his middle starts to fill him up. He's never been able to stand the feeling.

The third day, he wanders around the apartment, trailing his hands over the walls and wishing the prints were still there. He drifts over to the windows and realizes that they're doors, and they open to the outside. He gently turns a handle, waiting for—pain, punishment—but nothing happens. The handles turn easily, the doors open soundlessly and Dean steps through. Just like that, he's out of the room, and standing under the bloody sky. A sick feeling roils his gut; he hangs his head and hates himself, briefly but violently, for never having tried to escape. It was that fucking easy but all he'd done is lay there and let his brother fuck and torture him and act like he was grateful for it…Dean takes a deep breath and walks out and heads for the tree in the desert.

The red sand puffs up under his footfall, gritty and hot against the naked soles of his feet. A light breeze sends the dust floating up around his ankles before it settles again. It’s quiet, Dean had expected to hear the screams of the damned but it's quieter than an afternoon in a library.   
The farther he walks, the less his stomach growls for food, the less thirst pricks him…he's hot but not unbearably so and probably has something to do with being a creature of Hell. He walks and walks and meets no one. The crows follow him though, settling behind him whenever he stops, flying on when he begins walking again. He passes a fence made of black rods and knobs…it slowly dawns that they’re burnt bones woven into a fence. He passes what look like street lights once or twice, tall thin, twisted poles. They give him the creeps. Little empty black boxes hang from the top, lids open and nothing inside…he remembers, the frightening little eyes, the same blue as Castiel's. 

The ground changes, less dust now, more like loamy soil tinted the rust red of the dust. The ground's warped and roots as thick around as his arms roam over the ground, they snake in and out of the moist soil. He clambers over the thickest set of roots and stops, looks up. 

The tree looks just like the tree Cas had hung from, like in the last print, the clearest one, in which Cas sat happily on a branch of the tree, his coat flying out from him, his tie flung wild by a breeze. "Ah, Cas," he mutters. "You really…fucked up spectacularly, you dumb son of a bitch." 

Dean climbs the tree, high as he can go safely, and sits on a branch big as a couch and—just sits, thinking. He thinks of Cas and what he did but more than that, what he'd meant to do, what he'd tried to do. He thinks of Angel, and how he hadn’t known…and how he maybe had. Yeah, some part of him had always kinda known. He thinks of Sammy, too, and how much he misses him. He wonders if it will ever be different. He's got eternities to find out. Or maybe someday Sam will get tired of it all, and give him a final death. It could happen, Dean thinks and smirks. There's an apple on the tree and he plucks it, considers it, rolling it this away and that in his hand. He tries to take a bite but it's too withered and bitter. Dean sighs and looks towards the basement. "Yeah, that's not too subtle," he murmurs and tosses the apple from hand to hand.

There's a dust cloud coming from the direction that he'd walked, it becomes the wake a car throws up as it races away from the basement. In a minute or two, a '71 Buick Regal stops close as possible to the tree and a demon climbs out, riding the meat of a twenty-some kid, all big eyes and curly hair. 

"Master says come back—now."

Dean peers down at the demon, suspiciously. Sam wouldn’t send some guy in a car after him—he'd send a harpy to pierce him on its claws and rip him out of the tree and drop him in the basement courtyard. "He also said no one would come for me. What're you after?"

Big eyes roll and the demon huffs impatiently. "He said you'd say that. I'm supposed to tell you to get your worthless, fucking, stupid piece of shit ass in the car right the fuck _now."_

"Well, hell—sounds like Sam all right." Dean climbs back down the tree, a little hampered by the stupid, withered apple in his hand, and when his feet touch the ground, the demon slaps him like he's been waiting to do it for a lifetime. Dean's bottom lip splits in two and he flies backward, slamming into the ground. "Fuck—" he gets back to his feet and his head rolls, he's dazed and a little pissed off. "Did Sam tell you to do that, too?"

The demon just grins. 

"If you kill me—" Dean starts and the fucker interrupts.

"Doesn’t matter, He'll just bring you back."

Dean's not weaving like a drunk now, and he wipes his mouth, spits out the blood. "But think how pissed off he'll be that you had the nerve to kill _his_ pet."

The demon frowns and for the first time, looks a little nervous. "Shut up. Get in the car."

Dean shrugs and smirks a bit. Climbs in the car and wipes blood on the upholstery. "He'll either be pissed off you made me bleed or that I bled on the car. Sure, he'll beat me, but you think he won’t do to you fifty times worse than what he does to me? And you know what he does to me." Dean thinks idly that he should be ashamed or frightened or feel any damn thing but he doesn't. He'll feel plenty of negative things when they're back in the basement.

Sam's livid. He rips him through the doorway, snarling like a German Shepherd, and throws him across the room. Dean slams into the bed, drops down on it with a grunt. He's pretty sure something broke inside…Sam rips his pants and tee shirt away, leaving long burning streaks across his chest, his thighs. Dean closes his eyes and tries frantically to shove himself down into that place where he feels less. The dried-out apple he'd plucked rolled off the side of the bed and under it unnoticed. 

Dean's still as a rabbit on the bed, waits for pain but nothing happens. He opens his eyes slowly, like a kid afraid to look and make the bad thing real. 

Sam's just—staring at him, perplexed, angry. He reaches out for Dean, and Dean's too beat up to flinch, or even close his eyes. All he can do is wait... 

"I don’t…I was…" Sam starts, hesitates, and tries again. "I was…afraid…I came back and you weren’t here. It made me…something." Sam looks confused and disgusted. "Worried. I was worried. What the fuck, I should have locked you in a room with some foot soldiers to keep you in place. I should have caged you before I left. Why didn’t I? What’s wrong with me?" Sam stares down at Dean, and there's something different about his brother. Dean reaches out slowly, carefully, afraid to touch and find out it's all a dream.

"Sam?" he asks, so soft he's not even sure Sam can hear him. But Sam leansinto the touch of Dean's hand and meets Dean's eyes. Sam's eyes are different, not the cold, hazel-tinted marbles Dean had gotten used to. Sam's gaze is intense; his eyes that hazel-green they went when he was thinking…his mouth loosens from a straight slash of anger to that Cupid's bow that had always made Dean want to kiss until it was pink and swollen and warm. Sam stares into Dean's eyes like he's searching for something and then Dean goes and makes the worst mistake he's ever made in his life. "Sa—Angel?"

Sam looks impossibly taller, wider, the room smells like burning paper and Dean breaks out in a cold sweat even though his skin tells him he's been dropped into the sun. Sam rears back from the bed, his eyes flash from hazel to red—blood in his eyes and blood in his mouth and teeth, all Dean can see are teeth. He makes a fist and squeezes and Dean arches off the bed, can't even scream—Sam's just popped his heart like a balloon.


	27. The City of Dys/The End of Everything (part c)

He's screaming before his eyes open, pulling against the nails that pin him to the stainless steel table. The Doctor's hovering over him with a bright shiny, clean saw, his coat is spotless and a blinding white. There's a smile on his face, his eyes swim behind the thick lenses of his glasses. "This will be special, for both of us," he breathes and Dean stops screaming.

Sam's voice fills the air. "Take him down to nothing, then do it again."

The first, long horizontal cut sends him scrambling inside his head, his body trying to void everything—the bisecting cut stops his heart but it's okay, Sam just brings him back and the Doctor cuts him, and they do it again, and they do it again. Dean screams when he can, wide-awake through it all. Sam won’t let him escape, not into shock or insanity or death. He talks to Dean, asks him how he feels. 

How he _feels?_ He feels like he made the world's worst mistake. He feels like he's lost everything and anything worth breathing for. He feels like he deserves it, but still…he's so fucking ashamed because even after failing in the most miserable way, rendering Castiel's sacrifice useless and betraying Angel horribly, he can't stop wanting to live.

Dean screams for John, begging him to save him. He screams for Cas to come back and stop the pain, screams for Bobby, begs for Angel—Dean bargains and pleads for it to stop with everyone he's ever known, but he never once asks Sam for a fucking thing, and Sam goes from laughing and giggling at the list of names, from suggestions to his minion, to slowly quieting, and the quieter he gets, the angrier he seems to get and Dean has no idea what else he can give to Sam....

He's in the process of drowning in his own blood, his back cracked open and his ribs flung wide. The Doctor's searching inside him, pawing at his guts, slowly pulling his lungs out through his back. There's a moment when time feels like it's slipped sideways, he's coming out of a deep, dark pit and suddenly, everything is crystal clear, bright and painless, like he's free. Unfortunately, the feeling only lasts for a moment—Sam's in his face, looking like an avenging god—all thunder and lightning, eye-for-an-eye. Dean waits for it, a not-so-killing blow, but then Sam's behind him, ripping the Doctor out of his guts. Throws him, grabs one of the standing lamps. Snaps it in half and drives the jagged stalk into the Doctor's chest, pinning him to the floor. He's cursing and sawing, saws until the Doctor's in pieces. As he tries to crawl away from Sam, the Doctor pleads, "What did I do wrong, master, how did I fail?" over and over. 

Sam ignores him. All his attention is on Dean, contemplating the mess of bone and blood and skin hanging in the chains, trying to breathe. Dean, at last, doesn't feel a thing. He's a blank, black slate. Sort of aware of the Doctor on the floor and of Sam at his side, staring…but there's nothing. Not even relief that there's nothing…until Sam touches him. Kisses the slash of his mouth, the cracked edge of his jaw. The muscle and tendons of his neck. Sam slides the flat of his hand into the wings the doctor made of Dean's ribs and pulls it back out, dripping red, leaving streaks on whatever skin's undamaged on Dean's body. "Heal," Sam says and laughs soft and low like he's laughing at his own private joke, but Dean does. It's quick and complete—for seconds Dean feels like he's boiling in acid but it's gone almost as soon as he feels it. And now the only pain he feels is the chain holding him up, and the strain on his shoulders…it's almost too much. 

Meanwhile the doctor's been trying to crawl for cover, trailing blood and viscera behind him and not stopping, not dying. There's blood everywhere, and it's so ugly and horrible, it breaks through the shell of Dean's own nightmare world. He watches with growing horror as Sam follows after the doctor, stabbing, stabbing, shredding bits away until Dean screams, "Please, Sam. Stop—stop!"

Sam hesitates, not really angry now, more…puzzled. "Why should I? He hurt you—don’t you want revenge?"

"Yes—no. No, please. Just—stop playing with him, please. Fix him, whatever—"

The Doctor's agonized moaning grows, he slobbers apologies into the stone, begs Sam to let him show how much better he can do, he promises Dean's pain will be transcendent if only Sam will let him heal, a few days at most, he begs, a few days to regrow limbs and guts and— 

Sam kicks at the Doctor, roars, "Shut UP"—and vaporizes him. "I can't fucking hear myself THINK." 

The only sound is the creak of cooling stone and Dean's shattered breathing…until Sam speaks. "You tricked me into killing my most useful servant. You're really going to have to pay for that." Sam bears down on Dean, all the pain in the world visible in his eyes. 

"But-but…you stopped him. You did that, not me, I thought, for-for me…?" Dean stammering in his effort to get the words out as fast as he can, deflect Sam's anger and maybe get him talking…he doesn't get it, why this fury? If Sam killed the Doctor because he was hurting Dean than this makes no sense, Sam has to explain what’s going on—and then Sam's all over him and the why doesn't matter anymore. 

~o0o~

For days afterward, Dean makes himself a ghost in the apartment. Sam comes in and out, wanders the rooms but never really acknowledges Dean, never looks directly at him...there are some days he comes in bloody from head to toe, his eyes so yellow they look like open flames. He hisses and mutters to himself and if Dean's unlucky, Sam notices him. Other days he slips in quietly, clean and pressed and dressed like Dean's dreams of a Sam that will never exist again. He looks around the room as if he's never seen it before and if he has to speak to Dean, he does while looking at some point over Dean's shoulder. He'll ask Dean if he needs more food, or water, nods at whatever answer Dean gives and leaves again. When it's a quiet day, Sam's eyes shift constantly, from yellow to black to red to hazel and Dean's strung tight as a wire, trying to figure out what's coming next. It's a giant fucking relief when Sam leaves on those days; right up until the door closes behind him.

He knows he should be grateful that Sam's making himself scarce but he's not and not only because part of him worries that Sam's taking the time to devise a suitable punishment for Dean. He's sure Sam hasn't forgiven Dean for making him lose his temper and his precious torturer. It's this…forever being stuck in the rooms alone. Dean hates it, almost as much as he hates that he can't take being alone. It unnerves him that he'd rather have Sam near than be alone…scares him when he thinks of the one sure-fire way to keep him close. 

Dean's disgusted with himself, hates himself even more that the idea isn't as repulsive as he wants it to be.

~o0o~ 

Desperation drives Dean to do something stupid. In retrospect, Dean thinks he really should have known better but hey, reckless and impulsive is practically his middle name….

When Sam comes into the room, it's dark. Dean's not sure if it's dark because it's night or dark because of Sam. Dean's perched uncomfortably on one of the steel and leather things that Sam calls furniture, squatting on the edge. Sam's dressed in a grey linen suit, his face is blank and when he looks at Dean there's nothing in his hazel eyes. Perfect, Dean thinks. 

"Sam, take me upstairs. I can't…can you please take me upstairs to the outside? I can't breathe down here. Just, for a little bit, just enough to. I don’t know, stretch. See if there's a real world out there…" Dean slams his mouth shut, wishes he could take that last bit back, but Sam just stops, his mouth works before speaking. He looks nonplussed. "I, okay, maybe. I've got a lot of clean-up to do first," he says and his eyes flash gold. "The Duke and I have." He stops and scoops his hair out of his eyes, sighs heavily and Dean clenches inside. It's so oddly Sam, the gesture….

He comes off the couch and stops in front of Sam. "Turn around," he says, and gently urges Sam around, hoping Sam will just go with it. 

Wonder of wonders, he does, even lets Dean slide his suit jacket off. Dean works the muscles at the base of Sam's neck, familiar with Sam's aches and pains because they did this hundreds of times for each other, after a hunt, in down-time…Dean works on across Sam's shoulders and down and eventually Sam groans, his body loosens a bit. "Better?" Dean asks and Sam nods. Dean stops kneading, switches to stroking. He bites his lip, this is…his hands work their way down Sam's side, slide around to his belly, ease their way lower. His heart's beating harder, but he's started this, he needs to just… Dean slides his hand into the loose band of the pants. Sam's already hard and he palms Sam's dick and works him, slow, just enough and on the edge of teasing, like Sam used to like. Sam's moaning, "Dean, yeah, good…"

Tears spring into Dean's eyes. Sam fills his head, Sam in a motel room bathroom, rocking back against Dean, Sam grinning at him as he crawls his way up a ratty queen bed in some other non-descript, mildew scented joint…"Sam," he says, and Sam in his arms stiffens. 

"What are you doing?" he snaps, and jerks out of Dean's grip. "What are you trying to do?"

"Nothing Sam, nothing, just…wanted to make you feel good."

Sam stares at him, his eyes flat, gold and blank again. "Good? Good?" he repeats and slams Dean against the wall. When Dean hits the floor, Sam crouches over him, has his eyes on him like he's some unknown, disgusting thing—smashes his fist into Dean's mouth. The shock, the unexpected pain, floods Dean's eyes with tears. Flashes of light explode behind closed eyelids, and his mouth fills with blood from his lip. He's bitten through it and…he wiggles his tongue in his mouth. Yeah. Just as he thought, Sam's knocked some teeth loose. Blood drools over his chin and he spits bits of tooth on the floor. "You fuckin' bastard," he mumbles.  
Sam rears back, shakes blood off his hand and asks Dean in all fucking seriousness, "Why'd you make me do that?"

Dean would laugh if he could—shit, at this moment, if he had a loaded gun, he'd have no problem firing on Sam—but since his face feels like someone's let off a stick of dynamite in the center of it, laughing is something beyond him right now. He gargles some reply and Sam steps on Dean's hand, pinning him to the floor. "You were nothing once, a roach, my roach. I turned you inside out until all you knew was my name--why shouldn't I do that now? Oh right," he snarls. "Can't. You made me kill my favored servant." 

Dean spits again. "Fuck you, so do it yourself, you prick—you don’t need him. Break me, erase me. I don’t fuckin' care."

"You should," Sam shouts. "You have to care!"

"What?" Dean blinks, his head's swimming and the pain is turning him stupid. "Why? S'there a reason? Wha' the fuck for…" he's drifting, swimming in a warm cloud like a shot of really good drugs, he's most of the way out when he thinks he hears, _because I need you to._ Sounds like Cas, he thinks, I miss Cas, miss Sammy…. 

~o0o~ 

When he wakes again, he's fine. He's not too surprised about that, a little disappointed he's awake. Alive. He shrugs.

So, he's alive and alone, and…he gingerly cracks his jaw, flexes. And in one piece again. That means it's time to start the day. He showers and dresses in one of the many identical outfits Sam makes appear on the bed each morning. "You're a damn near omnipotent being—you can't make more than t-shirts and jeans? A fuckin' pack of underwear would be nice," he grumbles to himself. "Paira goddamn socks, how hard can that be?"

After dressing and bitching, there's hopefully breakfast. Sam sucks at that too. Turns out there's a box of Pop-Tarts in one of the kitchen cabinets, along with a can of condensed milk and a vacuum pack bag of coffee. He just stares at it. Shakes his head. "Fuckin' great." There's no coffee maker in the kitchenette. He grabs one of the Pop-Tarts and looks in the fridge. Jesus," he says. "What the serious fuck…" There's a bottle of tomato juice and a couple of eggs. It's like being in a really crappy-ass fairy tale, a Grimm style tale. Lots of blood and low-rent magic. Shaking his head again he wanders over to look at the French doors. He doesn't twist the handles—the doors have been sealed. It made him laugh the first time he tried to open them, after his little trip. Still makes him smile….

He's just settled on a couch, wondering if he can stomach the kind of things that the screen in the apartment will show him, picking sticky crumbs from his hands when the door opens and one of Sam's pinstriped clad thumb breakers saunters in. "Majesty wants ya—now."

Dean squints. This one is real meat—nothing's riding him. Dean's surprised. And thankful. The humans tended to be less invested in making him suffer, they just did what Sam ordered quickly as possible and got out of the way fast. 

They end up in a room he's never been in before. It's not the lab; it's not Sam's office. It's big, cold, looks and smells like Doc Benton's operating room. Behind glass walls, there are tiers of seats, filled with humans and demons and horses, all looking down at Dean. The floor is empty, the tiles gleaming whitely under dozens of hanging lamps.

Sam's waiting for him, smiling—Dean double-takes. He's really smiling, like, _something good is gonna happen_ smiling. He steps to the side and Dean sees he's got a woman trussed up in some complicated rope and knot pattern, like the oddball, kind of boring porn he'd come across occasionally when Sam forgot to clear his history.

Sam's still smiling as he ushers Dean across the floor. "Stand here," he says and winks. Snaps his fingers and something streaks across the floor, something like a furred centipede. It swarms over the woman and every pass reveals a new streak of blood. 

Sam hisses in Dean's ear. "She hurt you, touched you, shamed you, she's paying for everything she did to you."

Dean shudders, struggles to keep down bile. This is insanity, this is the kind of things that only psychopaths or his brother do. Present a quivering, bleeding thing as a gift. 

The queen of the floating cities is smearing the tiles with her blood, screaming for forgiveness, squirming in a growing puddle of blood and it reminds Dean of the Doctor, the way he bled and begged for salvation. Dean flinches when Sam grips his shoulder gently. "She'll never hurt you again, no one will." and Dean wants to ask, _is it because she hurt me, or because she played with your toy_ , but Sam's looking at him oddly and it takes Dean a moment to realize it's expectation. 

Dean jerks, his mouth drops open. Sam thinks, he thinks Dean wants this. He thinks Dean wants her dead. Sam's giving him a gift…

Dean stands, silent and shaking until Sam calls an end to it finally. He's cold, his stomach is cramping and his mouth is sour. His eyes ache. He flinches hard when Sam touches him, and freezes when Sam's face falls. Waits for it…but Sam only asks him if he wants Gavreel, the angel also and Dean almost chokes getting the words out, no, no, it's fine, it’s fine really…

Just before Sam closes the apartment door on him Dean works up the courage to ask, "What about the cities, the people—"

"I didn’t touch them—why, do you want me to, I can—"

"No! No, it's good, thank you, good," Dean chokes out.

Sam doesn’t say anything before the door shuts with a barely audible click. 

 

Dean drops down to the floor, gasping for breath. Fuck—what the hell was that? Sam was. Sam was…Dean covers his face. "God. Angel. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." 

~o0o~

So Sam gave him a gift, and then took it away.

Dean's sitting cross-legged on the couch, drinking an honest-to-god beer and watching the screen, which is, thankfully, playing an old movie instead of the _Brother Citizen Loves You_ fucking hour, when Sam's minions pull him out of the room and frog-march him into the elevators. He ends up being tossed into a windowless beige room, a room empty of everything but a dim golden glow that seems to come from everywhere. The door slams behind him and he whirls around—the door's gone. He's in a box with no windows, no doors…Dean stands still in the center of the room, forcing himself to calm, deliberate breaths. He examines the room, eyes first and then walks along the walls. The floor's got a slight give to it even though it looks like metal, it's blood temperature, like the air in the room. He trails his hand over the skin-smooth wall trying to find something, a seam, a blemish of some kind—and freezes. 

"Fuck…fuck. FUCK." The memory of this place drops him to his knees, has him scrabbling backwards until he hits a wall. Sam's dropped him back in a particularly insidious cage and this time, he's afraid Sam is never coming back for him…Dean tilts his head back to hit the wall and closes his eyes. His knees draw up and his hands hang loose between his knees. He wonders how long it will take him to loose it. Wonders if the hunger pains he feels from time to time will fade away or grow until he's ripping at himself. Dean laughs a little and wipes his face. Crying again—being with Sam has wiped out all embarrassment he's ever had about crying. He's like a leaky faucet these days.

He's pretty hungry, and he's slept a few times since he's been locked in. He hasn't bothered to try and keep track—he's got a feeling that doing it will only drive him nuts even faster. He's just sliding to his side, curling his arms around his knees and about to try and drop off again when a rectangular seam appears on a wall. The seam parts and the door opens slowly and Sam walks in.

God…Dean closes his eyes and waits…waits…opens them again when nothing happens and Sam's just staring at him. And wringing his hands. 

"I'm. I don't know exactly what happened. I was just thinking, about you and that…that thing. How you watched out for him and I got so pissed off, thinking somehow all of this is your fault and I told them to take you…put you in here. You wouldn’t have starved you know."

Dean just stares at Sam, wordless because there just...there just weren't enough words for what he was feeling.

"You wouldn't have," Sam taking Dean's silence for disbelief. "You would have just…oh."

Dean stares and hopes that his imperfect memory of this cage is enough. He hopes that what he does know shows in his eyes. He thinks it must, the way Sam drops his head, his hands hanging loose and still at his sides. 

"You don’t know what it's like," he says and steps aside. "Get out of here." His words are harsh, but the tone isn't. Dean's not a complete idiot; he jumps up and sidles past Sam, careful not to touch. He remembers which way to run. 

~o0o~

They're sitting at the sealed French doors and Dean says, "Sam, you're killing me. You're taking me to bits in slow motion. You're making me go crazy, crazier, and I don’t know what's real anymore. Am I in hell with you, or am I still in Chronopolis? Or am I in the Floating City…Sam, am I in hell, am I in the basement with you?"

Sam stares at Dean and doesn't say anything. 

"I wish you'd kill me, man. If there's any part of you that cares even a little about me, you'd turn me to ash." Dean drops his head, and tears drip into his lap, darkening the cotton pants he's wearing. 

"I've killed everything that ever meant anything to me. I've killed myself. I can't kill you." 

~o0o~

Sam's suddenly over him in the dark. His big, big hand comes down over Dean's face and it covers him from forehead to chin, presses down until Dean can't draw in air anymore. His lungs flutter, begging for oxygen, and Sam presses harder.

"Look at you," he murmurs. "Look at you, begging to breathe when days ago you asked me to kill you. This is for you, Dean; this is my gift to you."

It gets darker and the dark fills with silver sparks, and his lungs stop fighting it and warm waves swell through him but he doesn’t really want to die. Why not? It's Sam's last gift. And it's not a bad way to go, he thinks, as he starts to go limp in Sam's hands. Regrets nibble at the edge of his mind as he fades. He's sorry for failing him, sorry for not shooting Sam when he had the chance, he should have saved him, saved him this pain on top of everything because some year, some distant time, maybe, Sam was going to wake up to everything he'd done since losing his soul and it would kill him. 

Dean drifts deeper into the dark, but some vestige of big brother lets him pat Sam's hand before he goes away. 

~o0o~

When the air comes back it hurts, it's shocking. His nose and mouth feel rug burned. He draws in a breath with a whoop, and chokes it back out. It takes him a moment to pull himself back. "Oh no…oh no..."

His eyes roll, taking in the room, expecting to be alone. But Sam's in a chair next to the bed, watching Dean come back to life. It's dark and hard to read Sam's expression and when Sam reaches out to him, Dean flinches so violently he almost falls off the bed. Sam pushes the chair back, walks out of the room and Dean just watches him.


	28. The City of Dys/The End of Everything (part d)

Air comes rushing back and it hurts like a bitch, like sucking in sand. His nose and mouth feel like he's scrubbed his face over a rug. "Fuck."  
Breathing in little sips of air, It takes him a moment to figure out what's going on, and when he does, he's not really disappointed, he's not much of anything…just more of the same then. The ice in Sam's heart thaws a bit and then refreezes, and Dean's the one who pays for it, every time.

His eyes roll, taking in the room, expecting, hoping, to be alone. But no, Sam's there, watching Dean come back to life. He's sprawled in a chair pulled up bedside, feet planted wide, his arms crossed, his body language screams impatience. It's dark now in the room, it's hard to get a precise read on Sam, the way his face is shadowed. Dean wonders how long he's been out of it…. He wonders if Sam's been sitting there the whole time, and why. 

When Sam reaches out to him, Dean flinches so violently he almost falls off the bed. Sam pushes the chair back and walks out of the room without a word. Dean just watches him go.

~o0o~

Sam is driving him nuts, Dean sure wasn't bullshitting him about that. This constant thaw and freeze is making Dean doubt everything, making him fear everything. He figures Sam's not bothering to keep his eggs from scrambling anymore because shit is getting weird— _weirder._ He's seeing things that aren’t possible to see, and hearing voices that were stilled years and years ago. Like, he hears Bobby sometimes and it sounds like he's in the next room cussing him out over something. He hears his dad's voice, heavy with disappointment, right in his ear, like Dad's leaning on his shoulder and whispering to him. Once, Dean swears he hears Pastor Jim standing outside the bathroom door, asking him if he's ready to come home now.

Sure he is—he's been ready for eons, but when he pulls the door open, no one's there. It unsettles him that he heard the voice and that he'd forgotten Jim's been dead since before everything went to shit.

At least it doesn't scare him anymore. It's even become entertaining, in a way—breaks up the endless trickle of time. He walks past the French doors and sees Angel standing outside them, shaking his head. He opens the curtains in the bedroom and through the window, sees Castiel trudging past the fire-falls, wading through miles of red dust. Cas raises his hand and tries to get Dean's attention, but Dean refuses to look. Because it's not real. He knows none of it's real, and he knows that because if it was real, Dad, Bobby—either one of them—would have shot him for being a monster and for fucking his brother. Pastor Jim would have read an exorcism on him. And maybe shot him for fucking his brother.

Dean just swims through the days, watching what happens when his brain unravels like he's watching a movie. He watches the red dust outside spread and spread until it's piling against the French doors like snowdrifts. Unexpectedly, the drifting dust jumpstarts a memory for him—of Sam and him living in a hunter's cabin in upstate New York while they waited for Dad to come back from a hunt. It's so weirdly bright, so clear, that it practically blindsides him. He sees it—hell, he _lives_ it again—how it was good because they'd had plenty of food and fuel and nothing but time. For a while they were just like normal kids….

He comes awake flat on his back in front of the doors. He licks his lips and tastes blood, he's got a pounding fuckin' headache but he's grinning…with the oddest feeling that he won something. 

It's been a while since the night that Sam tried to kill him, long enough that Dean can sleep the night through again. But there comes a night, a dream, something that has Dean jerking awake, breath trapped in his throat and an anxious feeling…the fear that someone's in the room with him, too close. He's scrabbling backwards up the bed, slamming back against the headboard, trying to keep away from whatever it was. But there's nothing there. He's alone. Or he is now—there's a note from Sam propped up on the nightstand, telling him to get ready, to get dressed, and there are clothes on the bed, and shoes neatly lined up on the floor. 

Figuring there's really no point not to, he dresses in the clothes left for him, walks out to the kitchen to see what oddball shit he can scavenge for breakfast this morning, and gets a hell of a shock. There's actual food in the kitchen—hot food, in take-out bags, from a diner whose name he recognizes. He rips the bag open and tears through the food, moaning through mouthfuls of bagel and egg and cheese, spraying crumbs and sucking steaming gulps of perfect hot coffee, trying to swallow it all past the hot lump in his throat. He's just sucking the grease off his fingers and eyeing the few crumbs in the bag when there's an impatient banging at the door.

Dean approaches the door slowly, carefully. He hasn’t got a damn thing to protect himself with except the plastic lid from the cup. He clutches it and feels kind of stupid, but it's better than going empty handed like a lamb to the slaughter—whatever. He just feels better with it and grips it like a throwing star before opening the door. He steels himself for the worse—

Throws open the door and at first, he doesn't see anything, but "Drama queen," he hears, and looks down. 

The demon wearing the curly-haired blond with the big eyes, the one who'd brought him back to Sam when he'd gone for a walk, lets himself into Sam's apartment like he owns it, which tells Dean that whatever happens next is by Sam's wish. Dean's ready as he can be, waiting for whatever's coming, knowing it could be anything, anything at all. A voice whispers in his ear _whatever happens you deserve. I hope it hurts_ It sounds like his dad but it's just the loud-mouth crazy in his head. And he can't be too crazy since he knows that. He smirks at the demon. "What the fuck do you want, Goldilocks?"

The demon rolls its eyes and says, "He wants you to come with me, so—come with me." The demon spins on his heel and walks back out the door, not even waiting to see if Dean is going to obey—why should he? Everyone obeys Sam's word. Dean catches up with him at the elevators; curiosity and fear creep under the tough-guy cloak he's trying to pull around himself. He hesitantly asks, "Where…where are we going?"

The kid points upwards. "The command center—the Hotel."

Upstairs. Out of the basement. Into the world. Dean chews on the edge of his thumb. His hand skitters over his hair, down the back of his neck, he's so fucking tense and nervous he can barely keep his legs still. Afraid to go out and going crazy from being locked in— _buckets of fuckin' crazy, thanks a fuckin' lot, Sammy…._

"He says you have an hour in the garden today. I'm supposed to watch you. Thanks for that, by the way."

The kid seems sincere, like he's actually thankful and actually thanking Dean, so Dean nods. "No problem."

Dean's still not certain that what's going to happen next is going to be a good thing. Fuck, a demon just thanked him—that usually not a good thing. And Dean remembers seeing a broadcast from that rose garden. He remembers dead things hanging from the iron fence surrounding the gardens…

When the doors open at last on sun-bright hallways, he flinches back from the avalanche of light, the flood of smells. It smells like a summer afternoon after a flash down-pour. Gets under his skin and in his sinuses and makes him shiver but it's good. He takes a slow step forward and then another and then another, and then the demon is shoving him out into the hall with an impatient snarl. "C'mon, will ya—we only got an hour, so snap it the fuck up. Not like I don’t wanna be out there too, you know."

Dean throws the demon a look but picks up the pace and then, they're in the garden, the one Dean remembers seeing—the one he first saw Sam in. The roses are in full bloom, clinging to the walls, rambling over the fence—shrubs erupt with thick, fat blooms in a riot of colors. The air slips over his skin like fond touch; the sky is a clear robin's-egg blue, cloudless and over-whelming now after being trapped under a flat red-black sky for what feels like way too long. 

He turns in slow, slow circles, just—being. Feeling. Sun-warmed grass and the scent of roses, the faint scent of soil, live, living soil, not the throat drying dead dust down below. It's alive, everything's alive and it makes him feel whole.

The demon is bent over, poking at a beetle with a stick, poking and poking until the stick pierces the carapace. Pins it to the dirt with a little satisfied sigh. He glances up and catches Dean looking. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing…" Dean walks around the garden, catching glimpses of staff, human staff, who look terrified if they catch his eye, and quickly move out of sight. Dean sighs and heads for a bench in an alcove formed of shrubs. He sits there, still and quiet, sniffing the thick, heady scent of the roses…he has no idea how long he's there before the weight of a hand on his arm startles him awake. 

"So. Rested?"

Dean swallows and wills his heart to a steadier beat. "Yeah…thanks."

Sam smiles. "Okay. Ready to go home?" Four little words and they crash through Dean's brain like a fucking train wreck—he freezes, fear and common sense collapsing under the load of a sudden hot, roiling _rage._

"Home? The fuck? That freak show in your fuckin' 'basement' will never be my _home,_ all it is, is a fucking prison, a torture chamber you hold the goddamn key to—" he shouts, then curses himself for a fucking fool who never knows when to. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. 

Sam scowls, his eyes flash black. "See?" he hisses. "That's your problem _Dean;_ you're always so fucking ungrateful. You've been a pain in my ass all my life, you know that? You’re a fucking annoying bitch and—you’re a bitch. _Bitch."_

"I…I think that's my line," Dean says and it feels close to the stupidest thing he's ever done, in the top ten at least, right up there with running at a werewolf with nothing but a silver letter opener as a weapon, like staring down the YED with a gun they weren't a hundred per cent sure of, like…facing down Luce on a Sunday morning in a gas station parking lot with just a gung-ho attitude and a worthless knife.

Sam stares at him for a long, long time, long enough for Dean's heart beat to triple time. He lays his hand on Dean's thigh and Dean waits for it but…Sam just strokes once, light and smooth, and takes his hand away. He says, "You're right…that is your line." His voice is smooth, calm and possibly just the littlest bit amused. "But we have to go now. Maybe…another day you can stay longer, but now it's, it's, ah…dangerous." He turns abruptly and walks away, towards the rear of the hotel, tells the demon to take Dean back to the basement. 

Dean's starting to get that whatever going on in the world involves Sam in a different kind of way. Sam's gone longer and longer, the broadcasts are shriller all the time…the basement is full of activity, all day, all night. When Sam does appear, he glares at Dean like what's happening is his fault, and Dean is beginning to think…maybe it is. 

He's thinking that he's upset a delicate balance, that maybe he's pushed the scales toward—disaster, victory, it's hard to tell. 

Sam hasn't hurt him in weeks, he thinks, wonders why and what it means….

~o0o~

So, of course the very next night, Sam crashes through the apartment door and Dean has a moment to kick himself for being stupid enough to question good times before he's diving for the floor, scrabbling to get under one of the couches. He has a giddy, desperate hope that if he moves fast enough, he might make it to a closet, barricade himself but Sam is tearing him out from under the couch. He flips Dean and he's pushing him, herding him with painful jabs from hands and knees and elbows. He's howling, smacking and shoving Dean to the bed and then pushing his way in right after him, burrowing under the blankets and into Dean.

As soon as Sam's under the blankets, it hits Dean—the stink—smoke and blood and worse. Dean gags when Sam hooks his arms around him and pulls him close. Heaves when Sam rolls right on top of him, wraps his arms around him so Dean can't get away from the god awful _stink._ Sam's skin is greasy where it’s not sticky, slick in some places and thickly tacky in others and the smell, the smell…like the inside of a gutted animal rotting in a dumpster in the summer, like buckets of old blood…Dean struggles to breathe and not heave and holds on, tightens whenever Sam moves because some instinct tells him this is important and not to let go because it might mean his life. Maybe not just his.

Sam starts shaking, slight tremors that roll over him like waves. "God, god. Everything would be so much better if you were _dead,"_ he sobs, and Dean freezes. He doesn't stop soothing Sam though, his hands are on automatic pilot, stroking down the long, tight length of his brother's back, skating over knots of muscle and dragging across his sticky shirt. 

"S'okay, Sam, okay, I'll…whatever you want," Dean says and squeezes his eyes shut. Kind of wishes that at some point, one of his miraculous fucking rebirths had failed. Bet there were lots of days that Buffy felt like this, he thinks, and chuckles weakly.

"You think it's funny I want you dead?" Sam growls into Dean's collarbone, and Dean can't believe that he's feeling just a tiny bit, mildly turned-on under the fear. Sam lifts his head and says, "How can you laugh? How can you hold me? What the fuck is wrong with you?" he shouts.

"I'm. Fuck, I'm your brother, I've been taking care of you your whole life. What am I supposed to do?"

"Hate me," Sam screams. "Everything I've done, to you, the world—hate me, hate me!"

Dean lets go of Sam, eases his way off the bed. If Sam decides he's going to kill him, it doesn't matter where he is. He tells Sam the truth. "Fuck yeah, I hate you and I'm so afraid of you sometimes I piss myself when you just pop up out of nowhere. When you're here, I spend the whole time waiting for you to kill me, when you're not, I wonder where you are, are you hurt, are you okay—you don't even have to tell me I'm nuts. You made me that way. You made me worse than that and I hate your fuckin' guts."

 _"Dean…"_ Sam rumbles, warning in his yellow eyes, his voice. 

"Hey, you asked me, I'm telling you. I'm afraid of you but fuck, I love you. Damn it, I love you and I know inside you, there's the Sam I love, the Sam I gave my life for. I'd do it again if it would fix you, I'd die for you over and over. I love you." 

The blankets become fine cotton dust, dipping and whirling like dust devils across the floor. Sam rips the pillows off the bed and flings them. They explode in the air, showering tiny flaming bits of cotton and feathers everywhere. Dean thinks for one insane second that it’s actually kind of funny, and if he makes it through the next ten minutes, he's going to take the time to laugh his ass off over it…or not, he thinks when Sam screams like a kid being stabbed, "Shut up, shut up! You don't love me, you love that—that _thing_ in me." 

"You stupid fuck—that _thing_ is _you,_ always was. Of course I loved him, because he was—is you."

Sam drops his head, "Stop. Just stop, stop it…" he mutters, he grabs huge handfuls of his hair and yanks hard again and again and Dean backs away a few steps, wincing. Because it looks painful, and because it's different, and different probably means a lot of pain was about to come his way. But Sam doesn't move, he just rocks on the edge of the bed, mumbling. "Nonono…" over and over. He lifts his eyes to Dean and they're bright red, ruby marbles tracking nothing. "You say I'm killing you, what about what you're doing to me? I have to stop you. I don't want to but I have to make it stop."

"So do it." Dean stands against the wall, naked and helpless but so fucking done with crying, with everything. He closes his eyes and waits. 

When he opens them again he's alone.

~o0o~

Dean wanders out into the hall—no one's there. He gazes towards the elevators and wonders what Sam would do if he took off again. He sees nothing but hears a buzz like a swarm of bees in the distance, or a hundred hundred flies, the buzzing's louder and louder and louder until it's too much to take. He runs back into the apartment, slams the door shut, throws himself on a couch and screams when he turns his head and there's Sam, sitting like he's been there all along.

"There's no one left," Sam says, as if Dean hadn't just screamed like a chick in a slasher movie. "Just the Duke, and I…and I gave the Duke the world." He chokes out what he probably means to be a laugh. "I gave it all away, just to keep America," he says, like it's significant and glares at Dean like he's being purposely obtuse when Dean just sits there. Dean has no idea what the fuck Sam wants, or what he means so he pretty much says the first thing that comes to his mind.

"Canada? You gave Canada and South America away?"

Sam tilts his head, staring at Dean like he's a puzzle with a few pieces missing. A little frown twists his mouth, he says, "What? No. What are you— I kept—oh, all right. I kept the Americas—what difference does it make?"

Dean shrugs. "Just wanted to know. So…this Duke got all of the rest of the world?"

"No, just…a lot of the world is kind of…in disrepair." 

Dean sways like the floor's dropped out from under his feet. _"Disrepair…?"_ He doesn't think he's got the strength to know, but he has to ask. "Why?"

"Dean! Because I'm busy. It's harder without the other monarchs. There's no one out there to ally with and it's all me having to hold legions back and deal with fucking Cro—the fucking Duke. I'm—I'm tired. I'm just tired. Always looking behind my back. Worrying, fighting, I get so fucking tired. I don't want to do this; I wish I didn't have to. I wish things would run themselves."

"That's…that's probably not going to happen."

"Shut up. I know that." Sam sighs and shuffles a little lower on the couch, his long, long legs bumping Dean's. "Don’t you have anything to eat here?"

"Something to eat? No, you dick. There's some Kool-Aid packs and a bag of salt-water taffy, asshole. You won't feed me. Except that sandwich the other day. That was decent, thanks."

"Oh. Sure. No problem. You know you don’t really have to eat in the basement? Or…anything. Nothing feels real down here. I do, and I do, but nothing ever feels real. Only when I…when it's…." Sam stumbles to silence and pulls away from Dean at the same moment Dean moves his leg away from Sam's. "You…"

"Yeah, gotcha—torturing me makes you feel alive." Dean figures he's pushing it, considering the way things are going for Sam, but he wasn't kidding—he's done running from Sam. Running never helped anyway. 

"That's not…I don’t mean…" Sam shakes his head, eyes fixed to the floor. "It's more than that. Fuck. Just—" he jumps up and shouts, "Just leave me alone!"  
He barrels through the apartment door, slams it to so hard it vibrates in the frame. Dean yells after him, "I didn’t ask you to come here! No one's forcing you to come back here!" He's pissed off, furious and he's scared, just like always but there's this weird echo in his head, a niggling little thought scratching at the back of his brain. He stops and lets it skitter around until it unfolds into a memory of teen Sam, slamming his way out of the front door of one of the many places they'd squatted in—and holy fuck. 

Okay, Dean thinks, okay, and lets it build, the tiniest, thinnest, whisper of hope. Afraid to let it grow too much but fuck if he hadn't spent the better part of a year facing down tantrums just like that…hell, most of his fucking life. That, that was something he could deal with.

~o0o~

Three fun-sized bags of Cheetos, half a bag of licorice and five cups of black instant coffee later, Sam comes creeping in, and of course it has to be at night. Dean wakes up like a gunshot's gone off next to his ear. Dad would be proud of how alert he is, not a single cobweb of sleep in his mind. Sam is hovering over him, his eyes reflecting the glow of the TV screen. Dean's neck aches from falling asleep with his head on the unforgiving chrome arm of the couch. Sam licks his lips and draws out the heavy, serrated knife…Dean hasn't seen it since the gas station and he's surprised Sam has it. Must have sent his minions all over the Earth looking for it. Personally, Dean thinks using Ruby's knife is overkill…but maybe Sam does need it to permanently kill Dean. Dean knows he's been in the basement a long time, a lot of shit has happened to him—who knows if he's really human anymore?

Sam moves fast as a snake and Dean grunts—there's a bright pain in his palm and the smack of the hilt hitting his skin in his ears. "Wha—"

Sam says, "Here, this will kill me, I'm not an angel and this will kill me."

"Yeah well, you're not a demon either, Sam." Dean's at least…sixty per cent sure he's not.

"Don’t be stupid, Dean," Sam says. "Do it. I want you to. God, just give me this one fucking thing."

"Go away Sam, just—go away."

Sam backs away from the couch but he leaves the knife balanced on the arm. "Keep it. You will, you know. You will kill me before this is all over, and—I want you to. Remember that,"

Sam returns with a thoughtful look and takeout from a Chinese place. He gets one foot in the door before Dean throws the knife. It sings past Sam's ear and buries itself almost to the hilt in the wall. Sam glances at it, and then back at Dean, eyebrows pulled together. He looks surprised for a moment, then a dull, expectant hurt flashes over his face before it smoothes into a blank mask. "You missed."

"You're a fucking _asshole,"_ Dean snaps.

And Sam collapses. Deflates. The bag falls out of his hand and he goes to his knees and slowly, slowly, curls into a ball. He's quiet at first, Dean thinks he's just sitting there, but when he sits next to him, Sam's mouth is open and Dean realizes, the sound Sam's trying to make is too high pitched at first to be heard, and then it breaks and it’s horrible, an endless keening that shatters into hopeless sobbing. Sam cries and screams and hatred pours out, all directed at himself…Dean holds him, can't keep his own tears from falling. It goes on and on until Sam finally just passes out.

It's the first time Dean's seen him truly, completely unconscious. Sam's spread across his lap, little gasps of air puffing against Dean's twitching fingers. The way he's sprawled across Dean's legs leaves his throat exposed. It's long, thin—the throat he'd liked to cover in kisses and teasing bites when they were young and Sam was Sammy, the kid who loved him. Dean's fingers trace the pale line and the sharp curve of his jaw. He remembers Sam doing the same to him, opening his flesh with a razor sharp fingernail, and laughing…Dean cups Sam's cheek and feels him breathe, tangles his fingers in Sam's hair and tries to think. _What's next? Who was going to wake up here in his lap?_

His eyes track across the room, up to the knife buried to the hilt in the wall. He could do it. Sam's out of it, out so hard a tornado could whip through the room right now and Sam'd never wake up. He'd never even know and maybe then, without Sam to hold the door shut, the angels could come back and be…well, less dickish and more helpful. Fuck, they couldn't do any worse than what Sam and that duke guy and the others had done to the world. They owed him and his brother, damn it.

He eases Sam to his side on the rug, gets up and pulls the knife free, balances it in his hand. When he turns around, Sam's eyes are on him, narrow slits in an expressionless face. He's motionless where Dean left him on the floor, watches Dean come at him. His expression never changes, his eyes never move from Dean. Dean stops, his toes nearly touching Sam's foot. "Get in the bed," he says and steps over Sam, drops the knife on the nightstand. 

Sam nods and gets up, drags his clothes off and slides onto the mattress; Dean follows, yanking what's left of the bed linens off the floor. Dropping onto the mattress next to Sam, he spreads the sheets over them both and gathers Sam up again. "Go to sleep Sam," he says, and Sam does.


	29. The End of Everything

_"How can you ever forgive me?"  
"You're my brother. What the fuck else am I gonna do?" _

Dean's knocked out of restless sleep by Sam waking up screaming, fighting the sheets and striking out blindly, at least until Dean manages to get his hand on the back of his neck. Sam's skin is like ice, cold and wet, it scares the hell out of Dean because he's used to Sam running hot. He fights against Dean's grip, untwists himself from the torn sheet and almost flings himself off the bed despite the hold Dean's got on him, and he's still moaning and screaming something Dean can't understand. Dean shouts, "Sam, Sammy, I'm here, right here—"

Sam jerks hard, his eyes fly open and his arms shoot wide—reminds Dean of a startled baby but before the image really clears in his head, Sam drops back and it sends them both flat to the mattress. For a whole two minutes he's still, loose to the point of boneless-ness and Dean draws a relieved breath. Right, like everything's going to be just peachy now. Any minute puppies are going to start barfing sunshine—sure enough; Sam rears back up, starts shaking so hard the bed quakes. He's mumbling something over and over; Dean has to almost press his ear to Sam's mouth before he can make it out. 

"…sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm…"

Dean grabs Sam's face, yanks him around so they're face to face and he locks eyes with Sam, tries to look right inside him, stare into his soul. "Sam…?"

Sam shakes his head, shakes it harder trying to escape Dean's grip, the little whining noise he's making grow louder and louder, until Dean has to let go of him, has to cover his ears because it feels like the sound is drilling right into his brain. Sam flips off the mattress and scrambles into Dean's lap, his giant hands clamp down on Dean's shoulders and he _really_ lets loose.

It's not normal; it's not human, what comes out of his brother: the sound of a million different voices, legions screaming and under that, an amplified hiss, like grease hitting a hot skillet, hissing and popping—instinct tells Dean to close his eyes and he hides his face against Sam's chest just as a wave of something slams into him. It's like lava and glaciers smashing into each other and Dean's swirling in the wake—there's light burning behind his closed eyelids, it's a lot like when Cas tried to speak to him, the first time—and then it's gone. 

It smells good. That's the first thing Dean notices when he's aware of himself again. The air is dry, and hot, but it’s clean. There's a faint smell of pine needles, the smell of sun-baked sand. He opens his eyes and the first thing he sees is Sam, Sam's head resting on his thigh, his hand curled over Dean's hip. Sam looks like he's asleep, curled into Dean's body and he's smiling so sweet and peaceful that Dean panics—shakes him, yelling "Sam, Sam—" freaked out and panicking because he knows Fate's a bitch and after all this, it would just figure, this would just totally be the way their fucking luck runs. Of course, Sam's dead. Because Dean's life has always been this, giving your all and failing anyway, getting ashes and death and handfuls of _nothing_ in return….

"No, oh no, no—" Dean shakes his head hard, trying to jumpstart his brain— presses his fingers to Sam's neck, feeling like a fool for screaming first instead of checking. Fucking rookie move. 

He holds his breath, waits. Nothing, nothing, and then, slow, faint, but it's there. A pulse. Dean almost cries, he's so relieved. He slumps over Sam and feels how his hands are cramping, he's been holding on to Sam so hard…and then curses himself for again wanting Sam to live, despite the evidence that the world would be so much better off if Sam had died at any point ever before that fucking afternoon. 

Selfish. That's always been his problem, Dean thinks. And right now, he just doesn’t give a shit, he doesn’t even care. If all he gets is half a Sam, or a Sam that he's got to look out for over his shoulder for the rest of eternity, so fucking what—he'll take it. 

Sam suddenly rolls over in his lap, takes a deep breath, and moans. The moan turns into a sobbing hitch of breath and then, Sam's crying, but it's regular crying, good crying, so Dean just sits there and lets it happen. He shifts Sam so he's more comfortable, and looks around…of course they're not in the Hotel anymore. Where they are, though, is anyone's guess. They're in a sea of red sand and stone and scraps of scraggly plant life. And it's _hot._ Weird. Feels like all the moisture's been sucked out of his body, and he snorts. _It’s a dry heat…_ the giggles dry up too, when what’s happened finally percolates fully through his molasses brain.

"Fuck, fuck…" Sam's punched them somewhere else; in some weird, other part of hell. "Sam…hey, Sam…where in hell are we?"

Sam raises his head, sniffs a little and smears his shirt sleeve—and snot and tears—across his face. Looks around and says, "Arizona?"

Dean blinks. "Sure. Oka-ay…so, what's next?" Sam stares down in his lap, shakes his head. Dean sighs. "I know, I know…but. We have to do something."

Sam throws himself flat on the ground. "Can't we just stay here? Or, I don’t know. I don't want to go back. Besides I blew everything on cleaning out the hotel and getting us here. I'm all tapped out... like, like after…Lilith, you know…"

"Unh-unh." Dean shakes his head and gives Sam a pitying look. He stretches out next to him, the sand hot and gritty against his skin where his shirts ridden up. Prickly things poke him and little stones roll under his shoulder blades but it feels, damn, it feels good. Feels real. There's a sort of pressure in the air against him, he notices Sam's shifted closer and tries hard and not entirely successfully not to flinch. "Yeah, good try there, Sammy, but I don’t think so. This is something different, isn't it? You don't need go-juice anymore, I'm thinking. This shit, whatever happened, is not going anywhere, not even if you want it to."

Sam shrugs, shoulders digging furrows in the dirt, and finally gives Dean a small, almost not-a-nod nod. Mutters, "Maybe."

Dean pats Sam's knee, and he really wants to leave it there but a creeping sense of unease has him pulling his hand back. He bites the inside of his cheek when he sees Sam noticing what he did. His heart clenches at Sam's look—Sam knows why and it hurts him. Dean doesn't want to pull away but he can't help it. Sam being too close still makes him skittish and on edge, even if Dean is nearly certain that he's not about to take him apart anytime too soon. "Sam," he says, kindly as he can, "Someone's got to do something. You got…well, you know you gotta try and fix it, much as possible. Right?"

"How? How do I do that? How do I use this…this…" Sam stares at his hands in horror. "I can't. I can't make this right. I can undo myself, that's all I've got, Dean."

"That's such bullshit; I don’t even want to hear shit like that. Get over it, dude—suck it up. You fucked things up and now, you gotta fix it."

Sam glares at him, his mouth a sharp slash of anger but his eyes…his eyes are pure Sammy. Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and scoots fractionally closer to Sam. Sam cuts his eyes to Dean, and away. Says, "I never stopped loving you, you know."

Sam's words make him shiver, and all he wants right now is a few worlds worth of distance between himself and Sam but…he has to do this, has to prove to Sam he's got a reason to…to try and make it better, that he can be forgiven. And it starts with the truth. "You never stopped _wanting_ me, you mean. Now maybe you can love me again." 

Sam nods but Dean's not sure his brother heard what he was trying to say. Sam stands up and pulls Dean up with him. "Let's go—somewhere better than here. Hold on—" Dean closes his eyes and when he opens them again, they’re on a quiet, endless stretch of beach.  
"Wow…this jumping around with you feels so much better than the Constipatey Angel Flights. So. Where are we now?"

"The Atlantic coast…Jersey? Not sure…" Sam looks mildly guilty and Dean doesn't even want to know.

"It's…clean," Dean says, surprised because he figured with all the shit that's been going on, most anywhere beyond the Out Town borders or Dys would look like the first chapter of The Stand. But there's nothing but clear, clean beach for miles, nothing but the occasional pale gray smear here and there in the white sand. 

The guilty look Sam's wearing intensifies, he flushes and turns away. "Yeah. Now it is." 

It's pretty much what Dean had figured so he lets it go and concentrates on what's important, like —"Sam. This is nice and all but why are we here?"

"Because of what you said, remember? You said, _' After, we get some place near the beach, we drink a shit ton of booze, we fuck each other on every available service. And then…we relax.'_ You said that."

Dean blinks—stunned. He did say that—as soon as the words tumble out of Sam's mouth, he remembers saying it, sees it clear as day, him and Sam wrapped around each other on a skuzzy motel room bed. "Fuck. Yeah. Are you…are you remembering us, Sam? Things coming back? Feelings, good ones coming back?"

Sam looks confused; Dean can see him checking out. Things are coming too fast, there's too much to process and Dean gets that, feels the same way but he doesn’t have the option to shut down, he's got to hold on for both of them…. 

Sam moves, like he's about to drift away, so Dean takes his hand and makes Sam sit on the warm sand with him. They face the ocean; dig their toes in the sand. Sam makes a small noise and tilts, slowly, slowly towards Dean, giving him every chance to push Sam away but Dean sits still. It takes a lot, fighting down the urge to flinch but he takes a deep breath and lets the feeling of _Sam_ take over. Sam's head is on his shoulder and Dean thinks of his Sam of long ago, that little kid who'd shove his head under Dean's chin, sometimes tight enough to choke because that's how much he wanted to get close to Dean. His hair always smelled like coconut back then, fluffy and a little dry from the cheap dollar store shampoos Dad would buy. Dean pushes Sam's hair back from his eyes and takes a sniff. Sam's hair smells like smoke, and something expensive too, something that would probably have let Dean keep the Impala in gas and parts for a month or more—Dean winces. His eyes fill with tears so fast it hurts.

Quietly, hesitantly Sam says, "I remember…that you had a beard and I had to make you wash…" he bites his nails and goes on, "and I remember walking under a path lined with trees and there were dogs. I played with the dogs and it felt…good. I remember you let me kiss you, but I was scared…when did that happen? I remember it but I don’t remember when…"

Dean stares at the ocean, afraid to look at Sam. "Angel?" He risks a look, and Sam's staring at him. His face crumbles, and it's horrible because Dean has to force the vision of a laughing blood-filled mouth away, and look into wounded hazel eyes, watch the droop of Sam's lower lip. Fuck, just like when he was five. And ten. And twenty-five….

"You'll never…," Sam stops, breathes hard before going on, "I know, it will always be Angel now. I lost you. I broke you and I broke myself and I have nothing—"

Dean grabs Sam's wrist, yanking him closer. He locks eyes with Sam, Sam's clear, beautiful eyes, and says, "You idiot, when are you going to get it though that thick skull, hunh? You and Angel are one and the same. I loved him because I love _you."_

"But he wasn't me—he was different! He lived this whole other life that you don't even know about but _I_ do! I have all these memories and they aren't mine. Memories of you and I want them to be but they’re not—"

"Sam, you've got his memories and—hell, I'm pretty sure you've got most of mine—" Sam jerks so hard he almost pulls out of Dean's grip, but Dean won't let him and tears flow again but Dean barrels on "—and you have your own, all that shit…so okay, you deal with it. You fucking work through it because we don’t have any other choice, you get that?" 

Sam just folds, and there he is again, the Sam he grew up with, in that stupid, trembling, cupid's bow mouth, in that impossibly wrinkled forehead that makes Dean think of lost puppies and skinned knees, and 'fix it, oh god, fix it now—Sam's just fucking _killing_ him. Sam cries out, "How can you ever forgive me?" 

"You're my brother. What the fuck else am I gonna do?" Dean's glad it comes out less hopeless than he feels…still, Sam pins him a with look, a long, flat stare the Dean swears he feels in the back of his head. After a bit Sam nods, and drops his gaze to where their feet touch in the sand. "I know. Some day, you're really going to forgive me, but I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself."

"Well, you'll have to. You weren't all there and you didn’t have me, so…that's that. We gotta go back, you know that, right?"

"Fuck. Yeah."

"Someone's gotta make sure that this legion of yours doesn't eat up the rest of the world. Someone's gotta shove the Colt back in the lock, Sam. So to speak."

Sam snorts, peeks at him from the corner of his eye. "How're we gonna do that, Dean? How are we gonna stuff this shit back down where it belongs?"

"Well, first you climb your ass back on the throne, and then, you start making rules…like you did for Chronopolis. Not all of them were bad rules, and you encourage the good ones people made and we do it low key and patient and after a while, it will have changed and they won't even realize until it’s over."

"Dean, that sounds like—years and years—"

"Sam…I think we have years and years. Something you did, or Cas did but…I'm thinking time's not much of a problem for us anymore."

Sam sighs. "I don't think I can do this for as long as it’s gonna take."

"Don’t think of it like that. I'm gonna be here okay, I'm gonna protect you. I'm like, your guard."

Sam whips around and shouts, " _Stop it,_ stop acting like you care, like we're just---fucking Sam and fucking Dean. What I did to you—what I did to you."

"What you did, you made me like, your weapon, okay? You melted me, and took a hammer to me, you bent me and beat me and bent and beat until you beat out the perfect weapon. That's how you gotta see it, Sam."

"But that's not true, Dean, that’s not what happened!"

"It did Sam, that's what happened and that’s how the world is going to remember it and that’s how we will remember it, okay?" Sam shakes his head and Dean can see he doesn't understand yet, but he will some day. He'll get it. "Sam." He takes Sam's face in his hands and kisses him, closes his eyes and opens up to Sam until Sam whimpers and kisses back. "Okay? You have to put it back, all right?"

Dean let Sam wrap himself around him. In the space of a heartbeat, they're back where it all started, in Sam's office, on the upper floor in the now empty hotel. A breeze chases little plumes of fine, silvery ash through the room, out through open doors and windows. The sun's rising, the morning air is clear, and slightly chilly, and the walls are washed with the golden light of the still weak sun…Dean sits cross-legged across from Sam, Sam mirroring his pose. He smiles and asks Sam, "Do you believe that we have a chance—that we'll beat this thing?"

Sam takes a deep breath, looks over to an empty corner of his office, where there used to be an angel chained, and says, "Yes."

~o0o~

_  
**Epilogue**  
_  
Sam sighs, knuckles his eyes, and leans into the thickly upholstered back of his desk chair. Reports flow over the screen to his left: troop movements, images from street cameras in every free city, spare, dry reports from Chronopolis, from the Out Towns, the mining provinces, the new Beach Towns…it all pours out of the screens all over Sam's office. He watches his kingdom work like a well-maintained watch. All the pieces they'd lined up and kicked into motion had clicked nicely in place—he's got Chronopolis' ever loyal and ever irritating mayor in his pocket. Maybe. She was a devious woman but sufficiently driven by self-interest to improve the lives of her citizens. Hell, for all Sam knew, she genuinely wanted to improve their lives and effect change in the world. Whatever. She treated Sam the way she always had, even when she realized a fundamental change had taken place…Sam liked her.

And then there was Harold, King of the Floating Cities and Mr. Hunter General and the other major player in the game. With the loosely organized Hunter's Guild under his wing, and Dean's foot on his throat, they kept the Duke's legion running. Sam had no doubt that eventually, the world would tilt back the way it was, or close enough…Sam sighs and rubs at his eyes again. The last long run of days has worn him out. He's sick and tired of pulling the strings—the whole setup's like sitting in the center of a prickly, spiked web. Sam thinks about that, decides that's probably best re-phrased— it's like being _trapped_ in the center of prickly, spiked web. After all these years, he still resents his brother somewhat for herding him into this situation.

There's a knock at the door, and Sam checks one of the screens. "It's about damn time," he mutters and calls, "Come in—"

The door flies open before he can even finish his sentence. Annoyance is a slow burn through his gut and it comes out in his voice, "You're late."

His consigliore enters the office and stops at the side of Sam's desk, plops down on a corner of it. "Couldn't be helped. We had to make an example or two in the Alley. A slash and burn everyone saw. I put it on the hunters there to step it up or else. We don’t have to take shit like that, fucking sneaky-ass demons. Especially since his majesty the Boy King outlawed horses and lotteries."

Sam drops his hands to his desk and lets the anger roll over him, shakes it off. "I told you I want to know when something like that happens…"

"Sammy, we have to deal with it immediately and totally and with maximum blood loss. Some of those camps out in the desert, they still think they can get favors by putting up horses…"

Sam holds his hand up. "Stop. I don't want to hear it right now. " 

He understands that Dean can't get why Sam seems so squeamish now, but Sam knows how fragile a hold he has on that monster who ruled from this office. Dean helps, god knows, Dean helps. But it's on Sam to hold the reins on who he used to be. 

"Okay," Dean says, "Then how about some good news. How about the fact that our friend the Duke's faction ran into quite the welcome party at the border. Your legion was on top of things for once, and the Duke's on the run. Again." 

Dean grins and Sam can't help but grin back, says, "Yeah, he's _still_ screaming all over the place that I screwed him out of a deal but—"

Dean throws his head back and laughs, deep and stomach-shaking and Sam's eyes narrow in pleasure. He has a brief, overwhelming desire, to stop all other noises just so he can hear the sound of his brother's laughter better. 

"Fuck that son-of-a-bitch." Dean says, "The moment I found out who that motherfucker was, I figured I was duty bound to make his life a miserable march through steaming shit. You never should have hidden it from me, Sam," Dean says, but there's no anger in his voice, just a touch of amused annoyance. 

Sam relishes that tone, wants to make Dean laugh some more—it's what Dean needs and ever since this new chance has come to pass, Sam does his best to give Dean whatever that might be. So he snaps back, "Christo, dude, hold a damn grudge, why don't you? I apologized for that about a million times already."

"And I love it when you apologize, each time." Dean winks and Sam blushes because Dean…Dean _loves_ that he does. "Let's take off for a bit—a couple of hours, Sam. What's a coupla hours gonna hurt?"

"Dean, I can’t leave—who’s going to keep track of these pain-in-the-ass humans?" he says, and stutters to a stop when he realizes what he's said, but Dean either didn't hear it or he ignores it.

"I already got Harold and his crew on it, everything's at Defcon five. Come on, Sammy. Just for a little bit, let's go."

Sam gets up and walks around his desk, runs his hand across Dean's arm. The charms Dean wears on his wrist and pinned to his vest and hanging around his neck ring like little bells. Sam's touch makes him shiver. Sam knows it's not all desire—70/30, maybe. Mostly desire, but Sam's smile dims a bit anyway, despite Dean's assurances, over and over, that he wants Sam's touch. Needs it. 

Of course Dean picks up on Sam's shift of mood. Dean pushes into Sam's space, frames his face with capable, square hands, pressing in sweet and firm. "Don't," Dean says. "It's better. I'm better, you're better…"

Thing is, Sam's never been able to leave well enough alone—if there's a scab, he'll pick at it, and pick at it until he bleeds. "How? They call you the Scapegoat. They think I've bewitched you. They still think I'm the Devil—capital D. They hate me, they make signs when I pass—when _you_ pass."

"So what? That's a good thing, Sam; it means they feel safe enough to do it. The world's in better shape than it's been in a long time. _I_ don't care what they think as long as things keep getting better. And Sam—listen to me, Sam. The world is healing. It is." He takes Sam's mouth, leans his long, lean length into him until Sam finally gets with it and kisses back, lets everything go and just concentrates on this kiss, the warm, wet feel of Dean's mouth on his, tasting of nothing but the faint, faint hint of coffee. His chest presses against Dean's as they breathe together, heat spreads across his chest, and down his thighs and Dean presses up against him—not hard, not yet, but it wouldn't take much. 

Dean draws away, a lingering withdrawal that leaves Sam sighing for more. "I love you," Dean says, "You're part of me. Who can understand me like you do? When I look at you, there's this place in my chest that gets so tight I can barely breathe tight and then you touch me and it's all good. Man, even when I want to beat the fucking _shit_ out of you for being so fucking stubborn and hard-headed, I still love you. So much that we could be in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight but if you said "let's fuck" I'd do it right there on the floor because you wanted it."

Sam's startled into a laugh. He tilts his head, the way he knows will make Dean mock him, and says, "Is that love you’re talking about or obsession?" 

Dean laughs too. "It's us, is there a difference? Does it even matter?"

Sam just shakes his head, grinning, he nudges Dean until he trips into the couch across from his desk—a couch that has fat upholstered arms, all dark soft wool and warm wood…Dean's idea. 

Sam pushes him down, gently, and Dean smiles even wider and spreads his arms. Sam yanks his shirt over his head, and pulls his boots off, Dean making the way slower by helping. They manage between the two of them to strip each other off—elbows in ribs and boots on toes and at one point Dean clips Sam in the chin with his head and makes him snap his own tongue between his teeth "Ow!"

"Eh, big baby boy king—can't handle a little pinch."

"Handle this," Sam says, and licks a wet stripe up Dean's bobbing dick and works his lips around the tip. He sucks once, hard, sucking up the taste and feel of precome and Dean pounds his fist against Sam's shoulder. 

"Ah—okay, that's good, too good, you're gonna make me come."

"Lightweight," Sam chuckles and sucks a little bite into Dean's hip.

They're still finding their way back to this, to an effortless coming together. Dean doesn't flinch anymore when Sam reaches out to him suddenly, shivers less and less when Sam lays his hand on any part of him. Most nights when he wakes up, he curls around Sam instead of bolting upright in bed and trying to climb the headboard. 

Sam's almost stopped disappearing into the bathroom when that happens, to cry secretly. He thinks.

Today's a good day, a great day—Dean spreads his arms and legs and pulls Sam in against him, rubs against him like a cat and he doesn't stop smiling one little bit, even when Sam kisses him, when Sam leans down and nibbles and sucks at his neck, his jaw, tugs just a little at his nipples, just the way Dean likes. When Sam turns him over and spreads him, rubbing fingers around his hole, slipping the tips in just to tease, Dean moans and shimmies to his knees, spreading himself wider and bitching that Sam's going so slow he's gonna die of old age before Sam manages to get his ginormo dick inside him, never mind, he'll bring his own self off, damn it. He tries to elbow Sam and Sam dodges it with a snort and says, "You’re disgusting," and Dean says, in that annoying 'duh' tone of voice, "Well, yeah," like Sam doesn’t know him. 

Sam slides in slow anyway, good for him and good for Dean. Sam's feeling every bit of the slide inside Dean—so hot, silky, giving way bit by bit as Sam drives steadily deeper. He listens to Dean's careful breathing, and nips the back of his neck, just to hear it catch. It makes Dean tighten on him, his barely audible moan working like gas on a fire. "Shit…aw, fuck, Dean…" Sam rocks his hips, grinding deeper, still only moving just enough to tease them both. Holds Dean in place, until Dean whines in frustration, because he likes that little noise, but it means Dean's at the end of his rope so he relents, lets Dean set the pace. Blissfully ignores the muttered, "Finally you asshole," and just rides out the sensation, the sounds, holds Dean close when they both come….

It's when it's like this, that Sam feels something deep inside, a glowing loop of heat, spreading hot threads through him, slipping in his veins and his nerves, growing wider and wider and he knows what it is, it’s love. All of it is love for Dean, for what Dean did, never giving up and loving him no matter what. It's for everything Dean lost and what they gained, together, what they gained.

~o0o~

They clean up, and Sam stands, slips his pants and shirt back on and tries to flatten out his hair a bit… Dean's splayed over the wide, deep couch, ass up and buck-naked, seeming completely casual and comfortable. He probably is, the apartment's always edging on too warm anymore…"So, let's go to Florida," Dean says, "do some of that beach-fucking we talk about all the time and never do."

Sam turns to the couch, the ends of his tie pinched in his hands. "You know why. You won't like fucking on the beach, all that sand in bad places—"

"It's the principle of the thing, Sam. It's a promise we made that we should keep, we need to keep."

Sam nods. "You’re right. We will. When we have enough time, we'll do just that, I swear."

"All right," Dean smiles, like they've just settled something earth-shattering and important, instead of again postponing this thing they agreed on once upon a time. "Right now, dude, we gonna snatch a coupla hours, because we got a drive to go on."

He lets Sam dress him, and then Sam takes his hand and suddenly, they’re on a road—yellow dashed blacktop stretching on for miles, flat and empty under an ice-blue sky. There's a big, black car idling on the side of the road, thrumming expectantly. Sam's learned not to look at Dean in the first few seconds they see the car because of the face Dean makes when he sees it--every time. It only lasts a second before he smiles, and when he gets in the car, he pats the roof—but he never smoothes his hand over the long, sleek lines of it, he never calls it anything but 'the car'. 

It's not Dean's car, will never be, but there's a nice breeze blowing, the sky is clear and cloudless. The sun's lemon-bright and there's a scent of roses on the air.

They get in and drive towards the sun.

_the end_


End file.
